November 01, 2006

Christmas Down Under

A week ago in K-Mart – yes, even before the end of October – they had Christmas decorations for sale.

Cue all the standard conversations about how much earlier they're putting them out every year, of course, but the real mind-trip is seeing northern hemispere, wintry white Christmas decorations put out in the middle of summer. I remember last year, shopping for furniture at the Salvation Army for my new house, and a store employee was decorating a big, green, fake pine tree for the front window. He called out to a co-worker: "Hey, where do we keep all the fake snow?" Meanwhile, it was about 27C (80F) degrees outside and I was standing there in shorts, a tank top and sandals.

That's Christmas in Australia for you: Santa Claus hats on men in swimming trunks standing under palm trees on a hot, sunny December day. Post-colonial surrealism, anyone?

Posted by wildsoda at November 1, 2006 09:31 AM
Comments

I don't know about Melbourne, but here in Sydney the biggest culture-shock temper-tantrum inducement of the post-Halloween season is that starting 24 December the city nearly shuts down well into January. If you're not prepared to stay home and cook, good luck finding an open restaurant.

Posted by: Greg at November 3, 2006 05:36 AM

Really? I've seen restaurants open here before New Year's. Granted, I don't eat out that often, but it can't be as dire as nothing open until January. Come down to Melbourne for December sometime and see what you think.

Posted by: wildsoda at November 3, 2006 07:12 AM

We live in Melbourne, and certainly a number of places close shop for the month of January, but it's nowhere near as dead as most non-coastal cities in Europe in the month of August.

Posted by: Marjorie at November 6, 2006 07:06 AM