December 08, 2003

Seasonal Adjustments

It was dark when I walked to the bus stop this morning. The full moon was still squatting in the sky as beanie-d people scraped ice from their windscreens. Later on at work, we put up the Christmas decorations. I stood on top of the bosses desk with an armful of tinsel, gawking out the window in a "Holy Northern Hemisphere, Batman" moment. I'd never seen fog like this. It was so thick it seemed fake, like a smoke machine shrouding an 80s metal band.

Everyone's saying how Christmasy it feels. My colleagues whistle carols as they stagger in with their lunchtime shopping bags. Down in Princes Street, there's German Christmas markets, an ice-skating rink and a giant ferris wheel.

Yet I'm struggling to adjust my thermostat. Christmas to me is the blast of December heat when you leave an air-conditioned shop. It's invitations to barbeques and sitting in outdoor cafes getting plastered. It's fretting about how white your calves are. It's mangoes and pavlova and prawns and the smell of chlorine. It's the faint dread in your stomach, knowing you're in for a day of petty family squabbles, bawdy jokes and the annual enquiries about your piddling career and lack of love interest.

But now here's my sister and I, thousands of miles away from all that. There's an occassional twinge of homesickness and longing for sunshine, but we're secretly chuffed to be excused from the usual festive routine. We won't be driving round the countryside, my right arm turning pink, listening to our Xmas 2004 Begrudging Family Tour mix CD. We won't be swearing coz we can't find a petrol station, we won't be watching cousins fake gratitude at gifts, we won't be eating salad. Best of all, no one's going to be asking us when are we going to meet nice boys.

Our Christmas will probably mean slopping around the house in our tracksuit pants, hoping it will snow. We'll cook roast lamb and potatoes and indulgent desserts and scoff the whole thing ourselves. We'll sink a few bottles of Aussie red and drink to the strange scary sweetness of freeeeeeeeedom.

Posted by shauny at December 8, 2003 04:22 PM
Comments

Christmas in the Northern Hemi rocks! I almost had a White Christmas when I was in Ireland, but it settled for a cold & wet one instead. Nothing a bottle of Irish Whiskey couldn't fix :-)

So, when are you going to meet a nice (kilt wearing) boy to bring home to us?

Posted by: Braddles at December 8, 2003 09:59 PM

Wow, and I'm headed to Melbourne (first trip to Australia) for 7 weeks in early January, so I'll have the exact converse problem -- trying to reconcile "January and February" with heatwaves and swimming at the beach.

Something tells me it shouldn't be _too_ hard... ;-)

Posted by: wildsoda at December 9, 2003 12:32 AM

I'm so jealous of your Christmas. I hate Australian Christmas. I do like the holidays around it, but the actual thing has been causing panic induced nausea since July. I'll have a bottle of cheap plonk for you on the day as I sit on the back step in my shorties and singlet complaining about the heat.

Posted by: Monkey at December 9, 2003 03:24 AM

Well after moving north from Melbourne in June, I'm bracing myself for a humid Christmas. It has thunderstormed on a daily basis for the past week and every time I do something more strenuous than peg out the washing I am bathed in perspiration. (Perspiration...not sweat...I may be without a kitchen or hot water, but I can still pretend to be a princess). I intend to have Christmas in a swimming pool while sucking back many gin/lime and tonics....

Posted by: beTh at December 9, 2003 03:42 AM

Christmas in the north is full of surprises. Remember the end of 'A Christmas Carol'?

"Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father."

I think what this probably means is that Scrooge, full of new life and old money, stole poor Bob Cratchit's wife. And later moved on to the elder daughter. He didn't do it all, he did them all. So Bob killed Scrooge with a single blow from Tiny Tim's discarded crutch and was transported to Australia, leaving the rest of the family, which now included Scrooge's bastard children, to fend for themselves. About them, the end is uncertain. Maybe Tiny Tim fell into prostitution with the rest of the Cratchits. Maybe he ran (so to speak) with Fagin's gang. Maybe they ate him.

None of it would have happened if it weren't for the long nights and winter blues and visitant relatives of a beautiful white Christmas.

Posted by: Eeksy-Peeksy at December 9, 2003 07:50 AM

You're a sick and twisted individual, Eeksy...

In other words, a man after my own heart.

Posted by: wildsoda at December 9, 2003 10:02 PM

Oooh, it'll be wonderful, Shauners. Go make yourself a Christmas sled, and carol as you sled your way around the neighbourhood. Might get a free feed!

Posted by: momo at December 9, 2003 11:36 PM