Christmas in Australia.

G'Day,
Tonight I have been looking at other peoples blogs and following links from them. Lots of them are in the northern hemisphere and people are talking about cold and snow and the soon to be here Christmas time.
In Australia we have Christmas in the middle of summer and more often than not, where I live it is with the air conditioner up full bore. We put out our Christmas lights a few days ago and have them switched on at the moment. It always amuses me that people in Australia always put out decorations with northern hemisphere snowy Christmas themes included. Santa is rugged up in his warm warm suit and his sleigh is pulled by reindeer.
Years ago Pete made a Santa and sleigh to put on the roof of our garage that is pulled by white kangaroos. The idea for which came from an old Christmas song by Rolf Harris called "Six White Boomers". Meant to be the Australian version of Santa's transport in our southern hemisphere version of Christmas. Boomers are big Kangaroos. The ones purported to pull Santa's sleigh were white. I have seen white roos before, (albinos), but they are pretty rare and probably wouldn't survive very long in the wild. They are very pretty . The one we have is in the shed now, in need of repainting, but I always liked the idea of having our Aussie Christmas done in line with what we have in this country. I also had the idea of doing some gum nut babies (Australian children's stories by author and artist May Gibbs), in Christmas dress, though I never did get around to that. Anyway our lights are up. We keep adding a few more each year to our collection. I haven't decorated the Christmas tree yet which is out in my front yard. It is a nice sized book leaf pine, about 8 ft tall. We used to have some neighbours next door who moved away and gave me a few bits and pieces they didn't want anymore, including a half dead stick in a small pot that grew into my front yard Christmas tree. So it was meant to be, after surviving its earlier existence.
In the days before air conditioning the poor old early Australian Mum, had to cook the traditional roasts, ham and boiled plum pudding with all the trimmings over a wood fired stove in the middle of summer for Christmas day. English style. Nowadays we have changed things around a bit and many people have cold meals. Usually including beautiful seafood , like prawns, oysters, crabs etc. Yum. Though lots of people still opt for the traditional hot Christmas dinner. I cheat a bit and have a mixture of both. We usually have prawns & salads for lunch and roast turkey breast roll and ham for tea. And of course the Aussie adaption to the Christmas dessert the Pavlova. Home made of course, it is much better than the shop bought ones. Pavlova is a meringue crust with a soft chewy middle topped off with whipped cream and whatever nice fruit you can get like peaches, berries, passion fruit, kiwi fruit and grated chocolate. Or that is how I do mine anyway, there are lots of variations.
I haven't finished my Christmas shopping yet. Wagga shopping is absolutely mad the closer you get to Christmas. I always have good intentions of getting finished early, but yeah, you know what happens. The main street gets more & more crowded, people get hassled & cranky with the traffic and the extra people in the shops and their manners go out the window.
I feel like that trying to shop in the city with all the crowds. I have always wanted to walk through the markets or down the street in the city with both my hands on my hips and my elbows out at the sides and hit anyone who crowds me in. I never would, but it is funny to think about. Get out of my personal space you mongrels, oomph! I was talking to someone once who was telling me about how crowded it is in India to walk down the street every day. I don't think I would enjoy that. I'm definitely a country girl. Give me a dawdle down a quiet street any day versus a crowded city.
Today was a warm day here, not overly hot, 29 degres was forecast, I don't know what it got to officially. It was humid as we had a nice heavy shower yesterday. My water tank has about a foot of water in the bottom of it now. I worked as early cook today so I got home nice and early at 3.00 and was able to get a granny nap in before tea time. We had a cold tea tonight, B.B.Q. chook and salad. I have 3 days off now to enjoy. I have a bit to get done though. It is Annie's birthday tomorrow. My baby is 19.
O.K. goodnight.
Love Linda.