Australia: Christmas in shorts
Our idea of Christmas and indeed many other celebrations is anchored around the idea of celebrating being halfway out of the dark. After the winter solstice the days will get longer. The sun will shine brighter, and the ice will melt. There is something fitting about the artificial lights of Christmas brightening up the coldest and darkest nights of the year. We drink things like mulled wine and hot chocolate whilst sitting around a fire for warmth. No matter how unlikely it is, every year people want to see a white Christmas.
December 25th is for the northern hemisphere in the true depths of winter. However, for the southern hemisphere it is the beginning of their summer. And so, instead of gathering inside hiding from the cold and serving up a carvery. It is common for Australian families to gather outside around a barbecue whilst drinking cold beers and cocktails.
There is no image of Christmas more transformed in Australia than Santa. Santa in the northern hemisphere is famously dressed in red coats coated in fur. The image of his reindeers pulling his sled through the snow filled sky does not work in a setting where it is so warm it causes bushfires annually. And so, Santa loses the long coats and winter boots for red shorts and t-shirts. A combination of the summers warmth and festive cheer creates this almost anachronistic image of Santa surfing.
Australia is a country with very high concentration in its cities. These cities are almost all coastal. With December being in the summer, boxing day naturally becomes a beach day. The idea that on the day which I normally spend feeling lethargic whilst watching some of the worst tv ever commissioned that in one corner of the globe there are people surfing and sunbathing is a hard concept for me to understand.
Whilst the previous article talked about what Christmas in a country which does not even have a hint of Judaeo Christian culture looks like. Australia offers an insight into Christmas without any of the seasonal trappings we associate with the holiday. It is warm, it is bright, and people are outside wearing shorts. The lights do not make the night any brighter. And yet, people still come together.
Whilst Australia will not experience the harsh cold some parts of the world do, increasingly Christmas is the last safe time before the now seemingly annual bush fires which devastate the country. So yes, the dark is not banished but maybe some fear is. The Australian summer is becoming a scarier prospect and to have Christmas at the start of it lets everyone know that the days will be getting shorter and the temperatures colder because they are half way into the dark.
David Williamson is the Editor of Writer content at the Scoop