Saturday, December 12, 2009

Christmas Tradition: Australia, I Need Some Help!!!!

Hello everyone out there in bloggy land.  This is a totally random post but I need some help.
You see every year for Christmas Eve my family picks a country or culture that we use as a theme for the evening.
We find out what their Christmas Traditions are and then we learn a little bit about their culture and history.  This year my oldest daughter decided that we needed to spotlight Australia.  So if any of you wonderful and lovely folks that reside way down under happen to find this little blog post (I know there are a few of you) would you please, please let me know what some of your Christmas Traditions are?  I would like to be able to play some games that are commonly played, and I would like to know what Australians like to eat.
Thank you to anyone that can help!  Until then I think that Google is going to become my best friend!

9 comments:

Mimi said...

Good God, Heidi, you frightened me there, I thought I'd hit the wine too hard and was imagining snow on your blog, I'm not, am I??
Sorry can't help with the Australia bit, but what a lovely and educational tradition.
If you ever choose Ireland as your Christmas Eve country, I promise I'll help you.

Pat Churchill said...

Check out my website - you'll find the sort of things we eat Down Under. It's summer here now so our Christmas dinner will be seafood and salads, maybe some plum pudding. If the temperatures reach the high 30s Celsius it will be too hot for roast turkey or lamb. A lot of people cook their Christmas meal on the barbecue.

kayerj said...

oh Heidi take Mimi up on that offer, Iz could do it next year. We have Irish blood in us so that would be fun. --did you read my friday story about Em?

Hootin Anni said...

What a fun, fun, tradition. I do hope when you've completed your Christmas Eve Tradtions [of Australia this year] you post about it all.

What have been some other countries in your past from memories?

Aunty Evil said...

Hi, first time visiting.

Christmas in Australia is becoming more and more a seafood feast with plenty of cold food, seeing how the day is usually unbearably hot.

To achieve success with your seafood, you must arrive at the fish markets at about 3am with the rest of the people in your state, line up for hours, get trampled, abused and shoved and arrive home just as your guests are starting to pack their cars up to leave.

Dessert is usually trifle or plum pudding. Plum pudding used to come with a silver coin (an old English tradition) but not any more. Probably too much of a choking/poisonous hazard no doubt.

The only game to play on the day is cricket. You use a cricket bat, a tennis ball and your garbage bin for the stumps.

Grandparents are the umpires, dad pays for the broken window because it is usually him that causes it. No crying allowed, and tell uncle Billy that he MUST bowl slowly for the little kids because it is simply no fun seeing welts the shape of a tennis ball forming on their arms/legs/chests.

Oh, and for dessert, don't forget to serve your cheap christmas crackers, you know the ones that are supposed to pop when you pull at either end, but never really do? One thing is for sure, you will get a silly hat to put on grandad as he sleeps, a joke you've heard a thousand times and a plastic toy that has little worth other than to be stepped on in the early hours of tomorrow morning when you get up to go to the toilet.

You can throw in a family blue (argument) for good measure, the more inane the topic of dispute, the better it is.

Serve beer in an esky filled with service station ice and you are good to go. Don't even think about running out of beer! Don't cater for anybody but the men in the drinks department. They are the thirsty ones, the women are too busy in the kitchen to have time for a drink! (detect the sarcasm)

Whatever you end up doing, have a good one!

Serenityville said...

Hi!! I'm FINALLY coming to visit your blog, after you SITSed me back in OCTOBER. I know, sorry!! But it was worth the wait! Your blog is great! and I LOVE your family christmas tradition! I can't wait to hear about it! (If you get back into the blog-o-sphere, which you should, cause if you're writing about naked barbies, I wanna read more). Thanks for saying hi and merry christmas mate!

CC said...

that is so cool!!!

Killara girl said...

Hi Heidi, so glad you stopped by, I just love your blog. I think everyone's got it covered....often it's so hot we don't do much. We used open pressies, wait for the reli's to come over and eat turkey, ham, lamb. My Mum always made a plum pudding (she's Welsh) and the best, fruitiest fruit cake with marzipan & real thick icing. I miss that so much. We do like seafood, and the younger people will often party on the beach, or go somewhere where there's water...what else can you do on a stickin' hot day?

Then there's boxing day. The great race - Sydney to Hobart...you must see if you can catch it on the news...it's an absolute blast. We used to go out on the water with a friend with a huge cruiser (I know lucky us) and lots of wine & seafood. Boxing day is as good as Christmas!

I did a google search for Christmas in Oz to get my images and there are lots of web pages and blogs...I couldn't believe it!

Will have to come back later.

Killara girl said...

Hi Heidi, so glad you stopped by, I just love your blog. I think everyone's got it covered....often it's so hot we don't do much. We used open pressies, wait for the reli's to come over and eat turkey, ham, lamb. My Mum always made a plum pudding (she's Welsh) and the best, fruitiest fruit cake with marzipan & real thick icing. I miss that so much. We do like seafood, and the younger people will often party on the beach, or go somewhere where there's water...what else can you do on a stickin' hot day?

Then there's boxing day. The great race - Sydney to Hobart...you must see if you can catch it on the news...it's an absolute blast. We used to go out on the water with a friend with a huge cruiser (I know lucky us) and lots of wine & seafood. Boxing day is as good as Christmas!