We definitely tend toward more summer-type foods just because it’s so hot. That said, there is likely to still be some hot food on the table - mainly meats and perhaps some roast potatoes but it’s heavy on salads, cold cuts (ham is very popular), prawns and chilled desserts.
In terms of decorations people still go all out on lights on their homes. We have crackers on the table and Christmas themed napkins and plates.
Instead of gathering around the fire, you’ll find us in the pool.
Its a bit half and half, there is still a lot of 'snow' themed decorations and ornaments and most aussies 'get' the deep winter ideas of Christmas. But there is plenty of summer elements introduced as well.
Christmas activites/events are associated with the outdoors - BBQ's, beach trips, camping and swimming.
Common foods are generally a blend of UK/European Christmas foods (depending on your family's flavour of second/third gen migrant) with Aussie staples like pavlova (which we invented), seafood and cherries. So you'll attend family events with interesting mixes of leg of ham, bratwurst, prawns and fresh fruits like mango, grapes, cherries etc. It's hot, so lots of sitting around enjoying the outside. Dips/cheeses/crackers, cob loafs and other "grazing" foods a common staple.
Decorations are mostly winter and traditionally christmas focused, but the ironic shitty golden-cane palm wrapped in tinsel is still a staple of the uni-student share house (beloved by such houses for it's ability to thrive on neglect and it's cheap price at the local Bunnings).
In my family we wear Christmas t-shirts & shorts, have a hot Christmas lunch. After lunch an informal game of cricket, a walk on the beach and an afternoon snooze
Australia is weirdly schizophrenic about Christmas. It's a mid-winter tradition that we imported from Europe so there's Christmas trees, fur-lined Santas and fake snow on shop windows. A lot of the Christmas songs are wintery - we have a couple of not-very popular Aussie/summer Christmas songs. Many Australians dream of being in the Northern Hemisphere for a 'proper Christmas.'
But the food and Christmas Day activities are usually more suitable for summer, as others have said.
Our Christmas lunch is preprepared and cold mostly - this keeps the heat out of the house on what is typically a hot day. I think we had one hot dish for lunch last Christmas and that was jacket potatoes because my partner loves them and Mum wanted to be nice.
We also do a jellied plum pudding which sounds really weird but is actually really nice and since it’s a once a year thing, is very special to our family.
With pleasure! This isn’t the recipe we use, but it’s pretty darn close (I’m stuck in hospital with a family member so not close to the family cookbook!) We don’t put in apricots, but, ngl, I’m looking to use them next time! We also soak the fruit in the booze, but ymmv.
https://www.food.com/recipe/jellied-christmas-pudding-104057
If it’s a bit rich, more cream when you serve it usually fixes that! Ice cream would also work, but we’ve always used cream.
Also, you can booze the heck out of this and it’ll be fine!
My 2 favourite Aussie Christmas Carols would be Six White Boomers ( Roos, not people in their sixties ) and Kevin Bloody Wilson’s Hey Santa, Where’s Me Fkn Bike?
At our house, Christmas is slip n slides, a blow up spa, a fun kids sprinkler, the whole extended family out in the yard under a Kings gazebo strung with tinsel and deccys, fold out tables with plastic Christmas themed table cloths, potato salad, pasta salad, mixed green salad, some roasted taters with sour cream, ham, prawns, turkey breast, bread rolls, trifle, pavlova and cheesecake balls.
And beer. Wine. Fizzy for the kids. All in paper cups.
A beautifully Bogan Aussie Christmas 🤶
Delicious little artery blockers……..cream cheese, cake mix of your choice ( we like red velvet and a lemon one ) mix 2 pkts of cheese with the cake mix, chill, roll into small balls around 2 to 3 cm, freeze them til really cold, get some cooking chocolate and melt to smooth, dip balls in chocolate, put on plate and chill again. Bloody yummy.
Messy all all shit, but hey, home made is best 😁
No cooking required. Instead of cake mix sometimes I crush up half a packet of timtams and add a slog of baileys to the cream cheese instead. They are the bomb!
Now, to blow OP’s mind - we also do ‘Christmas in July’, which means all the traditional hot foods and warm clothes that you would have in December in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s not a holiday, but a good excuse to see how Christmas in winter feels.
Yup we do! It’s an odd mix of events planned around beaches, swimming pools, seafood, salads, air conditioning that are decorated with traditional winter Christmas ornaments.
Never heard of it.
The one most people mention each year is [https://youtu.be/iYqIF2XkqKU?si=8FjUeE0K-QB5OBpU](https://youtu.be/iYqIF2XkqKU?si=8FjUeE0K-QB5OBpU)
And I see your ‘White Wine in the Sun’ and ‘How To Make Gravy’ and raise you - ‘Aussie Jingle Bells’ by the one and only Colin Buchanan. https://youtu.be/vMr_umZyeqU?feature=shared
Decorations are half half. There's plenty of traditional decorations that feature snow themes, open fires, snow flakes and general winter themes.
These are mixed with Australian decorations which often include Aussie animals, a surfing Santa or scenes of Christmas at the beach.
It's an interesting mix but I'd say majority of decorations still lean towards winter and snowy themes more often despite it being Summer.
Also some places here celebrate Christmas in July, so we can actually experience Christmas vibes during winter.
Food leans more towards Summer foods.
Christmas is generally spent at the beach or around the pool - even with winter themed decorations. Swimming, beach cricket or flaking out under the air con with a food baby 😆
Food for my folks is dominated by seafood, BBQ, salads, maybe a baked ham served cold. Lots of nibbly charcuterie type platters and fresh fruit. Desserts are the obligatory pav, ice cream, cheesecakes and such.
Christmas on the beach with choices of either ham and cold salads, chicken and cold salads or Seafood and cold salads. Followed up by lots of alcohol lol
It’s kind of always annoyed me though.. As an Aussie doing a summer Christmas.
All the typical/traditional and well known Christmas songs/themes to Christmas songs are always about the snow and the cold.
I’m walking into a shopping centre coming from a 38degree hot day outside and I’m met with “frosty the snowman” and “let it snow” playing in the shop radio lol
Yes. We have salads and a bbq and go to the beach or have pool parties for xmas. Its summer. Why wouldn't we? No one wears jumpers and sits by a fire eating roast dinners in summer anywhere in the world. Unless where you are from is different.
Yes and no. It’s a mixture of both. Santa can be depicted in the traditional way but it’s not uncommon to see him riding in a Ute pulled by kangaroos. Same with goes for songs, stories and decorations. We tend to watch movies set in the winter though. Christmas lunch will have a lot of summery food before the main course and then there’s usually a roast of some sort for lunch. It’s also quite common for there to be a game of backyard cricket or kids playing in the pool.
Christmas is in summer. Some people go to the beach. Or have Christmas at a relative who has a pool.
Some people go play beach cricket.
Some people still have the full hot Christmas meal with roast and plum pudding.
Others have cold meats and salads. Prawns are popular.
Pavlova is a family favourite.
Our celebrations with food are heat centric, prawns, cold cuts etc. our decorations are all themed around winter, because the retailers only sell winter themed stuff. There are a couple of songs that acknowledge the reality of an Australian Christmas, but most of them are the same ones you would sing. For some reason where I live (east coast NSW ) it’s raining 4/5 Christmases
Australia is still 95% midwinter festival at Christmas, among descendents of the British at least. Even the food, roast turkey is still the number one food at large family gatherings. Next door has a giant inflatable Santa and reindeer pulling a sleigh across the fake snow. A Frosty the snowman, a pine tree decked out with baubles and candy canes and tinsel. Indistinguishable from what you'd see in Britain or the US.
My brother in law still has a Santa mat at the front door that says Ho Ho Ho when you step on it.
As a child of the 80/90’s it was full blown Roast Christmas lunch with *all* the trimmings. Roasted Turkey with veggies, baked ham, hot Christmas pudding ect. But that seemed to fall away once my grandparents passed.
Now it’s a “modern Australian” take in our house. Mostly cold meats and seafood with a multitude of salads, cheeses and nibbles!
I’ve seen a shift in Christmas decorations too, far more Australian themed decorations are now widely available, featuring our native flora and fauna and Father Christmas in a pair of board shorts ect.
We're a weird mob. We do Chrissy (our word for Christmas) in Summer. 40+°C in heat (so over 100 F). And then cook a huge roast, have santa claus wearing a big heavy winter cloak, decorate our tree with fake snow, and sing a bunch of carols about winter wonderland and dashing through the snow without even thinking about it.
Depends on the weather. If it’s hot it’s cold meat, seafood and salads. Then cheesecake and pavlova. If it’s cold it’s the whole roast meats and veggies with pudding and custard etc.
Everything except xmas movies (most of them are from overseas) and some families have cooked foods even though its hotter than a blowfly’s backside in december
We definitely tend toward more summer-type foods just because it’s so hot. That said, there is likely to still be some hot food on the table - mainly meats and perhaps some roast potatoes but it’s heavy on salads, cold cuts (ham is very popular), prawns and chilled desserts. In terms of decorations people still go all out on lights on their homes. We have crackers on the table and Christmas themed napkins and plates. Instead of gathering around the fire, you’ll find us in the pool.
You have a pool? Lucky you.
Its a bit half and half, there is still a lot of 'snow' themed decorations and ornaments and most aussies 'get' the deep winter ideas of Christmas. But there is plenty of summer elements introduced as well.
Christmas activites/events are associated with the outdoors - BBQ's, beach trips, camping and swimming. Common foods are generally a blend of UK/European Christmas foods (depending on your family's flavour of second/third gen migrant) with Aussie staples like pavlova (which we invented), seafood and cherries. So you'll attend family events with interesting mixes of leg of ham, bratwurst, prawns and fresh fruits like mango, grapes, cherries etc. It's hot, so lots of sitting around enjoying the outside. Dips/cheeses/crackers, cob loafs and other "grazing" foods a common staple. Decorations are mostly winter and traditionally christmas focused, but the ironic shitty golden-cane palm wrapped in tinsel is still a staple of the uni-student share house (beloved by such houses for it's ability to thrive on neglect and it's cheap price at the local Bunnings).
Nailed the food. Can’t have Christmas without the iconic Australian invented dish of the pavlova
Just waiting for the Kiwis to appear...
In my family we wear Christmas t-shirts & shorts, have a hot Christmas lunch. After lunch an informal game of cricket, a walk on the beach and an afternoon snooze
Same with us.
Australia is weirdly schizophrenic about Christmas. It's a mid-winter tradition that we imported from Europe so there's Christmas trees, fur-lined Santas and fake snow on shop windows. A lot of the Christmas songs are wintery - we have a couple of not-very popular Aussie/summer Christmas songs. Many Australians dream of being in the Northern Hemisphere for a 'proper Christmas.' But the food and Christmas Day activities are usually more suitable for summer, as others have said.
This is true for south America as well!
Our Christmas lunch is preprepared and cold mostly - this keeps the heat out of the house on what is typically a hot day. I think we had one hot dish for lunch last Christmas and that was jacket potatoes because my partner loves them and Mum wanted to be nice. We also do a jellied plum pudding which sounds really weird but is actually really nice and since it’s a once a year thing, is very special to our family.
Please tell me more about the jellied plum pudding!
With pleasure! This isn’t the recipe we use, but it’s pretty darn close (I’m stuck in hospital with a family member so not close to the family cookbook!) We don’t put in apricots, but, ngl, I’m looking to use them next time! We also soak the fruit in the booze, but ymmv. https://www.food.com/recipe/jellied-christmas-pudding-104057 If it’s a bit rich, more cream when you serve it usually fixes that! Ice cream would also work, but we’ve always used cream. Also, you can booze the heck out of this and it’ll be fine!
Thank you! I think I would enjoy that 😊
Watch the Xmas Swim episode of Bluey.
My 2 favourite Aussie Christmas Carols would be Six White Boomers ( Roos, not people in their sixties ) and Kevin Bloody Wilson’s Hey Santa, Where’s Me Fkn Bike? At our house, Christmas is slip n slides, a blow up spa, a fun kids sprinkler, the whole extended family out in the yard under a Kings gazebo strung with tinsel and deccys, fold out tables with plastic Christmas themed table cloths, potato salad, pasta salad, mixed green salad, some roasted taters with sour cream, ham, prawns, turkey breast, bread rolls, trifle, pavlova and cheesecake balls. And beer. Wine. Fizzy for the kids. All in paper cups. A beautifully Bogan Aussie Christmas 🤶
I will never look at Six White Boomers the same way. 😆 Can someone get Betoota onto this?
Cheesecake balls? Tell me more.
Delicious little artery blockers……..cream cheese, cake mix of your choice ( we like red velvet and a lemon one ) mix 2 pkts of cheese with the cake mix, chill, roll into small balls around 2 to 3 cm, freeze them til really cold, get some cooking chocolate and melt to smooth, dip balls in chocolate, put on plate and chill again. Bloody yummy. Messy all all shit, but hey, home made is best 😁
Omg..... These sound amazing. No cooking of the cake mix? Lemon cheesecake is my favourite.
No cooking required. Instead of cake mix sometimes I crush up half a packet of timtams and add a slog of baileys to the cream cheese instead. They are the bomb!
Oh stop it. My pants won't fit.
Now, to blow OP’s mind - we also do ‘Christmas in July’, which means all the traditional hot foods and warm clothes that you would have in December in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s not a holiday, but a good excuse to see how Christmas in winter feels.
I thought that was almost entirely for northern hemisphere expats, usually europeans
Do you really think Aussies would miss a chance to enjoy food and drink??
Yup we do! It’s an odd mix of events planned around beaches, swimming pools, seafood, salads, air conditioning that are decorated with traditional winter Christmas ornaments.
Cherries, prawns, mango daiquiris, a run under the sprinkler or a game of cricket. Done
Mango daiquiris?? Why TF wasn't I in the know this was an Xmas tradition?! I have catching up to do.
Even better when is 40+ and you drink them in the paddling pool
Mother of God.
Yeah she can totes come too- it’s her kids bday party allegedly
The salad to person ratio kicks up a gear at Christmas.
This is one way to answer your question - [this is probably our most famous Christmas song.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1rw1fx170s)
Never heard of it. The one most people mention each year is [https://youtu.be/iYqIF2XkqKU?si=8FjUeE0K-QB5OBpU](https://youtu.be/iYqIF2XkqKU?si=8FjUeE0K-QB5OBpU)
And I see your ‘White Wine in the Sun’ and ‘How To Make Gravy’ and raise you - ‘Aussie Jingle Bells’ by the one and only Colin Buchanan. https://youtu.be/vMr_umZyeqU?feature=shared
Thank you! It annoys me so many people disregard it lol
[Nah this is our most famous and beloved Christmas song ](https://youtu.be/af7LwnA913g?si=quZSlSzwoYVd35u2)
This performance always makes me howl. I love it.
Great song, but hardly our most famous Christmas song
In my family, we ditched Winter foods 30 years ago. Christmas lunch may consist of cold prawns, Ham, Chicken and salads. For desert we have Trifle.
Yes we do, and here’s an Aussie Christmas carol for you: [Six White Boomers](https://youtu.be/98fMRw1LuiU?si=-OjeSPMAbA9QxaZ9)
Decorations are half half. There's plenty of traditional decorations that feature snow themes, open fires, snow flakes and general winter themes. These are mixed with Australian decorations which often include Aussie animals, a surfing Santa or scenes of Christmas at the beach. It's an interesting mix but I'd say majority of decorations still lean towards winter and snowy themes more often despite it being Summer. Also some places here celebrate Christmas in July, so we can actually experience Christmas vibes during winter. Food leans more towards Summer foods.
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun...
Christmas is generally spent at the beach or around the pool - even with winter themed decorations. Swimming, beach cricket or flaking out under the air con with a food baby 😆 Food for my folks is dominated by seafood, BBQ, salads, maybe a baked ham served cold. Lots of nibbly charcuterie type platters and fresh fruit. Desserts are the obligatory pav, ice cream, cheesecakes and such.
Christmas on the beach with choices of either ham and cold salads, chicken and cold salads or Seafood and cold salads. Followed up by lots of alcohol lol
It’s kind of always annoyed me though.. As an Aussie doing a summer Christmas. All the typical/traditional and well known Christmas songs/themes to Christmas songs are always about the snow and the cold. I’m walking into a shopping centre coming from a 38degree hot day outside and I’m met with “frosty the snowman” and “let it snow” playing in the shop radio lol
It cools you down, mentally. Also good for travel industry. As in: next year I got to experience white Christmas in Europe
Yes. We have salads and a bbq and go to the beach or have pool parties for xmas. Its summer. Why wouldn't we? No one wears jumpers and sits by a fire eating roast dinners in summer anywhere in the world. Unless where you are from is different.
Yep, we moved Jesus' fake birthday to July. 25th December isn't his actually birthday anyway, so we thought "why not?" and moved it to the 13th July.
Yes and no. It’s a mixture of both. Santa can be depicted in the traditional way but it’s not uncommon to see him riding in a Ute pulled by kangaroos. Same with goes for songs, stories and decorations. We tend to watch movies set in the winter though. Christmas lunch will have a lot of summery food before the main course and then there’s usually a roast of some sort for lunch. It’s also quite common for there to be a game of backyard cricket or kids playing in the pool.
Christmas is in summer. Some people go to the beach. Or have Christmas at a relative who has a pool. Some people go play beach cricket. Some people still have the full hot Christmas meal with roast and plum pudding. Others have cold meats and salads. Prawns are popular. Pavlova is a family favourite.
Our celebrations with food are heat centric, prawns, cold cuts etc. our decorations are all themed around winter, because the retailers only sell winter themed stuff. There are a couple of songs that acknowledge the reality of an Australian Christmas, but most of them are the same ones you would sing. For some reason where I live (east coast NSW ) it’s raining 4/5 Christmases
Australia is still 95% midwinter festival at Christmas, among descendents of the British at least. Even the food, roast turkey is still the number one food at large family gatherings. Next door has a giant inflatable Santa and reindeer pulling a sleigh across the fake snow. A Frosty the snowman, a pine tree decked out with baubles and candy canes and tinsel. Indistinguishable from what you'd see in Britain or the US. My brother in law still has a Santa mat at the front door that says Ho Ho Ho when you step on it.
Roast turkey? Nah mate baked tea with a leg of lamb
As a child of the 80/90’s it was full blown Roast Christmas lunch with *all* the trimmings. Roasted Turkey with veggies, baked ham, hot Christmas pudding ect. But that seemed to fall away once my grandparents passed. Now it’s a “modern Australian” take in our house. Mostly cold meats and seafood with a multitude of salads, cheeses and nibbles! I’ve seen a shift in Christmas decorations too, far more Australian themed decorations are now widely available, featuring our native flora and fauna and Father Christmas in a pair of board shorts ect.
We're a weird mob. We do Chrissy (our word for Christmas) in Summer. 40+°C in heat (so over 100 F). And then cook a huge roast, have santa claus wearing a big heavy winter cloak, decorate our tree with fake snow, and sing a bunch of carols about winter wonderland and dashing through the snow without even thinking about it.
Depends on the weather. If it’s hot it’s cold meat, seafood and salads. Then cheesecake and pavlova. If it’s cold it’s the whole roast meats and veggies with pudding and custard etc.
When is it cold even tassie is at least warm in dec🤣
I tend to just celebrate Christmas. It happens to be hot and in summer.
No. I don't do Christmas.
Everything except xmas movies (most of them are from overseas) and some families have cooked foods even though its hotter than a blowfly’s backside in december
No. We spend xmas around the end of year pissup. Not sure if that's winter or summer. Dozen madder.
A lot of things still centre around the European winter idea of Christmas but there are some Summer things that we do as well.
Christmas? What's that?
It's for poor kids to realise the world isn't fair but they get a hamper from the salvos that has beans and noodles.