It is only in the past decade or so that Australia has embraced the fact that Christmas is hot and sunny and ideal for prawns on the barbie style festive dining. Many of our friends have strong childhood memories of being forced indoors on Christmas day to eat a hot meal around the table, with great tales of spending the day with semi-permanent red and green dye stains on their heads and down their faces after being forced to wear party hats which melted in the heat.
Christmas cards remain traditional, with pictures of snow covered houses, holly and red breasted robins.
Recently 'Christmas in July' has become extremely popular. The weather is suitably cold, with snow on the Victorian ski fields and log fires burning. Also the festive fare is all in season- turkeys are born in Sep/Oct so too young to eat in December and too old and stringy to eat the following Christmas. Sprouts are fresh and ready to pick, the trees are covered in mistletoe berries and holly trees are a luscious red.
So on tv for most of July we watch Nigella, Jamie Oliver etc cooking all their traditional British Xmas recipes while families are decorating their trees and boiling sprouts.
Merry Christmas everybody!
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