In December, We Were Australians!

In December we traveled to
Australia and celebrated Christmas the way the Aussies do! This was part of our Christmas Countdown, but I’ve decided we are going to do this every December, turning our country
dates into Christmas Around the World dates (ie: Christmas in Germany, Christmas in Brazil…)  Such fun!

I
picked Australia because I love the idea of a beachy Christmas!
December is the middle of summer in Australia, so Aussies celebrate the
holiday at the beach, a local park, or camping. We went for beachy:

(Imagine Abba and Men at Work playing in the background. 🙂 )

We dressed the part too.  Check us out in our ‘bathing suits.’  Look at this buff “bloke”:

 

And this tanned, bikini clad “Sheila”:   🙂

 

Given
that Christmas is in summer, Australians usually depict Santa in a
bathing suit, even surfing, and they sometimes have his sleigh pulled by
kangaroos, not reindeer.  So…I made a little ornament of a Christmas
kangaroo (at the beach), to remind us of our Christmas 2023 trip to
Australia. 🙂

I
had planned several different Australian activities, but we got a late
start so we ended up just doing food-related activities. We started with
a Vegemite taste test. I’d always wondered about this strange sounding
sandwich spread that Australians’ absolutely love, so I was very excited
to finally try it. Um, yuck!  How is that popular? Yuck! It’s like
super thick beef broth. Bleck!  (Jac said he liked it, but I’m
skeptical. He says that about everything!)

 

As
for dinner, I looked up what Australians eat for Christmas dinner, and
unlike Vegemite, it all sounded delicious!  We decided on a ‘surf and
turf’ theme, with the traditional pavlova for dessert.

Jack got started right away with his shrimp on the barbie (and steak and veggies)

And before long we had this DELICIOUS grilled feast, just like the Aussies do…but probably better. 🙂

After dinner, we goofed around for a bit and then Jac got back at it, making the traditional Australian dessert of pavlova. 

 

YUM! 
I really loved this dessert!  It’s fluffy and sweet, and paired with
the fresh fruit…I was mmm-ing my way through each bite! I’d love to
have this a lot more often!


After dessert, I’d planned to have us watch A Sunburnt Christmas
since it’s a Christmas movie set in Australia (so perfect), but we were
too tired to even consider it. Bummer!  Oh well, we’ll watch it next
week some time. It’s supposed to be very good!
 
And
that was our night. I’m so glad we’re getting back into the country
dates. They are always so much fun!  Oh, and one last thing… Here’s
another good look at Jac in his ‘bathing suit.’  Cracks me up every
time!!!


If we decide to visit Australia again, here are some more of my goofy ideas of things we can do. These are things we didn’t get to this time because we were focusing on Christmas activities.

  • try some other popular Australian foods like Tim Tams, Lamingtons, and meat pies
  • watch the Australian Camel Race or the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race. Maybe play a betting/drinking game while watching (and drink Australian wine)
  • do something related to the Great Barrier Reef. Maybe an art project.
  • Make our own didgeridoo. Lots of DIY videos on youtube.
  • Play G’Day Bruce, a popular Australian drinking game (directions are here)
  • practice our Aussie accent, one crikey at a time, with this video here.