fourgirlsfourcountries

Merry Christmas everyone out there! I know it’s a day late, but I have been so busy with everything else surrounding Christmas that I haven’t been able to write even a sentence here up until now! We are on our way out to meet up with some friends of my host family in quite a short while, so I’ll just give you a quick briefing on what Christmas in Australia means!

Well, as you might know already, Christmas in the Land Down Under isn’t celebrated on the 24^th of December as it is back home in Sweden, but it’s celebrated on the 25^th instead. Christmas here involves just as much razzmatazz, lights, decorations and hype as anywhere else in the world, minus the snow. The houses are decorated with lights and Christmas-y things, there are Christmas stockings being hung up around the house (despite the lack of fireplaces…), the Christmas bushes are being decorated with help from the kids in the house… But there is no snow! It has been quite odd to spend my Christmas this year playing cricket and other games outside in the grass, rather than building snowmen or having snowball fights, but I do have to say that I can’t complain about it being 35 degrees Celcius either! And of course, when it is this hot outside, you don’t want to spend your day inside, right? Can you guess what the Aussies do instead of having their Christmas supper at the dining table in the dining room? They have picnics at the beach! Well, of course, not all families do, but my host family usually does that, alongside a bunch of other people from the neighborhood. We packed all the Christmas food in a bag, grabbed our towels and swimwear, and headed down to the seaside! Once there, we unpacked everything again, and I got to taste the most delicious meal ever! We had roast turkey, chicken and ham, gingerbread cookies, mince pies, shrimps and lobster, sweets and Christmas pudding! I’ve never been so stuffed in my entire life, it felt as if I was a roasted, stuffed turkey myself while I was sitting in that burning sun after the meal! And all of a sudden, I realized that Jake was gone. I asked the mum of my host family where he’d gone, and she said that “He’s off to buy the paper”…. Aha! It felt kind of nice to at least have some of the traditions I’m used to left! And while I was sitting there, looking out across the water, I saw something red moving in the distance. Squinting my eyes, I realized the red thing wore a red hat. As it got closer, I started laughing uncontrollably. Onto the shore, on a surfboard, slid none other than Santa Claus, dressed in a red t-shirt, red shorts and a red hat! Running across the beach in a perfect Baywatch-manner, Santa delivered packages to everyone and then disappeared on his surfboard again. I have never celebrated a Christmas like this one, but I haven’t had as much fun either!

I’ll talk to you later!
//Alicia