Ok, so, Marg...Christmas in Australia and other warm places.

[Shari]

It seems that most other countries are bombarded by "American" culture, and know something about it. Heck, even the associates I am working with in Bangkok were wishing me a "Merry Christmas".

I didn't know when to wish them "Happy Loy Krathong" or even know the appropriate phrase. Its not like we say "have a merry day" or "merry birthday"..."merry" just isn't in our day to day speaking...

Here, tho, if we want to know something about a different culture, we have to dig and research to find info.

So I'm sitting her reading your weather report. And thinking of the celebration of Christmas here, which combines images of a large man, lots of hair, clad in heavy red velvet clothes (WARM) clothes, driving a sleigh (assuming snow). We have Christmas jingles about sleigh rides and snow, and the whole Night Before Christmas poem, which portrays an atmosphere of winter and cold and snow.

So, what do you guys do for this holiday since you're hot? Do you sing about a jolly, fit, young Santa who arrives in flip-flops and swim tunks? At least here in the states, even the southern states that don't get snow are still located on a physical continent that DOES somewhere when St Nick makes his round.

Just curious.

 

[gcvmom]

I imagine that being a former British colony, there's a lot they inherited/adopted that doesn't quite fit with their environment.

 

[Marguerite]

I'm a bit late to this, we've been celebrating! I'll have to post in more detail at a reasonable hour, it's about 2.30 am on New Year's Day!

Our celebrations are a mix of Anglo-Saxon, and more modern commonsense. We do have Santas in red and white. Our local Santa compromises by wearing red shorts (fur-trimmed) and red sandals. We have pictures of snow, and reindeer, and lots of northern hemisphere imagery. But we also have summer stuff mixed in with it.

We do know "The Night Before Christmas" but is it very US, we have our own versions. I mentioned the song "Six White Boomers" by Rolf Harris in an earlier thread. I found a link to a YouTube link to the song and matching animation. It's a lovely song, about Santa swapping the reindeer for large old-man kangaroos for the Australia leg. We also have Australian Christmas carols, but these don't often get sung because the royalties are expensive. We never bothered about that sort of thing when I was a kid, but now they even charge royalties for singing them in church, for example.

A lot of places have outdoor carols services, with the audiences spreading out picnic rugs and singing in the warm summer evening. We talk about Christmas, not "holidays". If you're Jewish, you talk about Hannukah. If you're Muslim, you talk about Ramadan (a bit earlier, though). Often the poor Muslim kids are in the middle of Hannukah while doing their final exams. Difficult, to be fasting while trying to do exams. But they're all different festivals with different meanings. Our school year finishes the week before Christmas, then we get six weeks' holiday from school before the new year begins, end of January.

I'll tell you more in the morning, I need my sleep!

Marg

 

[Shari]

You have to pay to sing carols? Is that true for any song sung? Wow.