An Aussie Christmas

This year marked my third Australian Christmas. I remember the first two as both sort-of-nice and sort-of-sad (2010's very strange trip is here. 2011, spent quietly with friends, seems to not even have warranted its own post). This year, I decided that I was approaching the holiday all wrong, and determined that I needed to, not just accept, but actually embrace that Christmas takes place in the middle of summer, and that either ignoring it all together or doing anything that tries to recreate a Norman Rockwell North American holiday was just going to leave me melancholy and disappointed.

So, this year, I undertook Operation Aussie Christmas.

Step 1: Ban all songs from the White Christmas oeuvre from my holiday playlist. Instead, put in heavy rotation "Mele Kalikimaka" and Tim Minchin's "White Wine in the Sun" (Stand warned, if you don't know Tim Minchin, he's a humorist and a bit of a cynical atheist, who has written an Aussie Christmas song that ends up making me cry every time).

Step 2: Choose the festivities. Going to the beach is a big thing to do for Sydney Christmas, but my aversion to crowds led me to decide we'd have a picnic at our favorite park - Blues Point Reserve, which is rarely crowded and features the most marvelous view of the Harbour I've yet to find. I'm loathe to even mention it here, lest the best kept secret in Sydney get out!

Step 3: Plan the menu. I opted for a cold ham, cheese, a prawn salad, fruit and a pavlova for desert. These were all cool, light dishes that required minimal heating of the oven, but still felt festive.

Step 4: Under the tree. (Our little tree hasn't changed much over the past 3 years). Partner-in-Crime and I are both starkly practical when it comes to gifts, so he chose to have me gift him some accouterments for his new Kindle. This year, though, I picked out something a little more impractical. Our dear friend Tanja is a brilliant jewelry designer, so I asked for a couple of her pieces. The week before Christmas, we went to her apartment/studio and I picked out exactly what I wanted. She custom made my beautiful necklace on the spot, and mailed the bracelet a couple days later, so I had something shiny under the tree to open. After a few other little odds and ends, a charitable donation to Heifer International from my mom, a couple of boxes of baby gifts from friends at home, along with some Christmas crackers, we really felt overwhelmed in the gift unwrapping department!

Step 5: The best laid plans. By Christmas Eve, all was well underway - grocery shopping done, presents wrapped, pavlova prepped, we'd watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and we spent the stiflingly warm afternoon in the pool. I was hot, but I was also elated, as this was exactly how my new Christmas fantasy had unfolded in my mind - sunny, toasty, and super casual.

Then, it started to rain. And overnight, the temperature dropped 20 degrees. It proceeded to rain for the entire Christmas day. I was glad that I had decided to preserve one North American Christmas tradition - cinnamon rolls for breakfast, which now seemed perfectly in place in all their warm, comforting gooeyness.

We devoured the better part of the plate of rolls, opened gifts and had a most delightful Skype date with my family, who really were wrapped in full Currier and Ives style Christmas regalia (minus the snow). We then rented "Elf" from i-tunes, and its slapstick silliness and sentimentality perfectly fit my Christmas mood. By the sappy end, it was late afternoon, and with the rain still falling, we sat our picnic blanket down in the living room, cranked up "Indie Holiday" on Pandora and shared what I do believe was the nicest Christmas picnic I could have asked for.

Christmas in Australia doesn't end with Christmas, as the next day is Boxing Day, a holiday which really makes no sense. Despite its vague origins, it's a good excuse for prolonging the holiday and post-Christmas sales. I had only one thing on my agenda for Boxing Day, which was again heading out to watch the start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. This year, we got to Middle Head National Park with our leftovers picnic in time to get a most amazing viewing spot. It was still a little chilly and quite gusty, but the sun returned so it was actually a beautiful morning. 

I had to snap a cheeky shot of this couple in front of us - epitome of Australian picnic culture.
11:30a.m. No plates for their sandwiches, but you'd better believe they have wine in actual wine glasses!

Because of the wind, a lot of the boats had their bright spinnakers up, making for a particularly beautiful start to the race. Last year, we were not positioned well to see the actual line up for the race start, so this year, we were absolutely enamored with the whole scene: Over 70 sailboats lined up on the world's most beautiful Harbour, waiting for a cannon to mark their start, and then taking off to sea towards one of the most difficult boat races around. It's spectacular. 

Wild Oats, the winningest Sydney to Hobart yacht, took off with a massive lead and is still ahead 21 hours later.

Hordes of spectator boats, along with the racing sailboats.

This wasn't the Christmas I grew up with by any means, but since we plan to live here for at least a few more years, I am elated to have finally found the secret to actually enjoying Australian Christmas, rather than just accepting its inevitability. It was a unique celebration, for sure, but I could not asked for a nicer one.