by Melissa Park

Created on: April 17, 2009

As an Australian who has never spent Christmas anywhere else in the world, Christmas for me is flashbacks of lazy summer days and backyard cricket, children singing the Australian version of Jingle Bells and Santa Claus arriving in the back of a ute. Their are several particular versions of the Australian Christmas that stand out in my memories. The first is Christmas with dads family, a huge affair consisting of drunk country uncles, numerous cousins and aunt who have been baking treats for two weeks. Dad and one of his brothers who lived nearby would go out late one night about a week before Christmas and return with a pine tree each. I remember they used to compete with each other, who can get the biggest tree? One year, much to the dismay of my long suffering aunt, my uncle bought home a tree so large that it had to be bent over in the shape of a candy cane in order to fit lengthwise between the floor and the ceiling. They would also compete with gifts, like the year dad bought so many that we couldn't see the tree for them. On Christmas morning my aunt would take my grandmother on the rounds to visit all the relatives that lived in the area, quite a large task when you have thirteen children and numerous grandchildren. We would all go to grandmas for lunch where she always had a gift for everyone, sometimes up to eighty people would attend. She was by no means rich, but would spend all year collecting gifts for Christmas. There would always be a huge lunch of roast meat and vegetables followed by every kind of desert you can imagine, supplied by the baking aunts.

After lunch we would all find a place to collapse and complain that we had eaten too much, while the uncles took to drinking XXXX beer. I remember one amusing incident during this after lunch rest, when one of my uncles had decided to buy these little gun toys that would light up and make a high pitched sound. He had retired after lunch complaining he had a headache, meanwhile forty or so children had decided it was time to shoot these guns all at once. Having had enough my aunt locked all of us kids in the bedroom with the offending uncle, who soon regretted his actions and never again bought a gift for any of us.

Once everyone was sufficiently recovered from the aforementioned feast, then it was time for cricket. There was always a drunk uncle to referee and another to yell "howzat" at ridiculous moments, and usually at least one who had removed his belt and therefore had to try to bat with

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>