An Australian Christmas, an excuse to whinge about traditions.

A sign you're having an Aussie Christmas
OPINION

Based on an article By Ben Pobjie

PHOTO: Australians have developed their own Christmas traditions that may appear a little odd to our northern hemisphere neighbours.

From dodgy trees to being bumper to bumper at the servo for bags of ice to "Australianised" carols, there are some clear signs that what you're experiencing is a Christmas Down Under.

Christmas Down Under
But we develop our own traditions 'round these parts, and anyone who's spent the festive season in Australia will recognise these signs that you're having an Aussie Christmas.
Heat exhaustion
Every true-blue Aussie knows the thrill of waking up on Christmas morning, rushing out to the lounge room to see what Santa has left you in your stocking, and then collapsing, senseless, as your body temperature reaches dangerously high levels.

You never know how much fun it could be spending the holidays in hospital on a drip to replace lost fluids.

Tradition
There is no more powerful tradition in the world than the Australian the ritual of sitting down in front of the Carols by Candlelight on Christmas Eve. For best effect should be done with actual candles blazing forth in the darkened living room, despite the fact it's a total fire ban day.

Then we sing When A Child Is Born before going back to the service station in the morning to buy more ice. In all likelihood you don't even need ice, but you feel for the poor bastard who has to work at the servo on Christmas and he could do with the company.

You are forced to listen to horrific "Australianised" versions of Christmas carols.
YOUTUBE: Aussie Jingle Bells

Perhaps some day our musical community will accept the fact we're intelligent enough to understand a song about snow even when we're not looking directly at a blizzard: we can only dream about.

Xmas trees
Then there's our Xmas trees they don't look quite right. They try their best, but they always look buggered and droopy, they don't match up to the proud firs we see in the movies and the tinsel is all uneven because it's 40 degrees and anyway who cares.

Mixed traditions

We keep northern hemisphere Christmas traditions(probably because we're to lazy to change it), while we're whingeing about how ridiculous it is that we keep northern hemisphere Christmas traditions.

One thing Australians love, is slavishly adhering to inappropriate cultural practises established by their ancestors in different countries. The two things Australians love most, is complaining about this without making any effort to change.

For a true Aussie Christmas, you need roast turkey so you can say how stupid it is to be roasting a turkey in the height of summer. Then you need the Santa's in the shopping malls thinking why am I doing this job and what a nightmare it is be to be wearing a Santa suit in this heat. Of course a nativity scenes is mandatory although we're aware of just how historically inconsistent the story of the nativity is.

Basically, a real Australian will enjoy a traditional European Christmas almost entirely because it allows us to the opportunity for denouncing traditional European culture it offers.

The date
If you are currently inhabiting the continent of Australia or one of its offshore territories, this is a reminder Christmas is December 25.