A fuzzy pumper Christmas and other tales from the South

'twas the first Australian Christmas i've had for five years...

My first Christmas away from Australia was spent getting drunk on drinks I never drink: shandies, and sherry, and eating an inebriated trifle. It was at the family home of my English friend Lara, a converted gamekeeper's lodge in the south of England. After watching some ladies in the local pub try to stuff other people's husbands into their christmas stockings, Lara and I sat before the twinkling television, with snoring mothers and dogs, listening to the arfing of the neighbours in the manor house and badgers scrambling around in the network of tunnels beneath the lodge. We were weighed down with drunkenness, too drunk to laugh, eating a dessert of bananoffee (the trifle - one part trifle, ten parts sherry - had been more like an apero than dessert).

The year after that I had yet another family Christmas in Tunisia, and then for the last three years I renounced the extended family Christmas, in favour of quiet Christmases in Paris.

In Europe Christmas is flipped upside down for me. Here we speculate as to whether it will be a white Christmas whereas in Australia we hope against a scorching Christmas of bushfires and drought.

Although it's different for my Australian friends of other backgrounds, my English grandmother and vague family claims to castles in Cornwall dating from the Norman conquests, mean that my christmases have indeed been very English, with an Australian twist.

During my childhood and still today we harked back to old England by exchanging cards with snow covered houses and angels draped in winter coats. Australian Father Christmas (Santa) is based in the North Pole, rather than say Antartica or somewhere more local like the Pacific Islands, and persists in sweltering into town in his camp, wintery get-up - although of course you do see funky Santas wearing thongs (as in flip-flops – what you may call thongs we call strings).

In 40 degree summers we were summoned from the swimming pool to drip inside and sit before a steaming table of turkey and cranberry sauce, red hot hams and puddings. Everything hot to match the temperatures outdoors.

When I was a child the Christmas period signified the end of the school year and week upon week of summer holidays. And of course there was the glorious moment of present-receiving: Les cadeaux! Les cadeaux! I have one early memory of receiving the fuzzy pumper barber shop, a dream fulfilled, only to have the dream blackened that very same day when I received a second barber shop kit from a much loved uncle. Tears came smashing down my face, and all the world, so ready to judge me, was convinced that I was brattish and greedy, crying because I wanted another present, not two of the same thing. But the real reason I was crying was because I didn't want dear uncle to feel sad, and what followed that was twenty odd years of feeling misunderstood. My psyche was clearly damaged then.

As I got older of course Christmas changed for me, less excitement over the presents although my uncle’s annual fifty dollars to get wasted on New Years Eve was always a treat

But then uncles died, children grew up and moved away to Paris, and now there’s a new generation of kids to be misunderstood.

Although the turkey stays put, my mother has started introducing food to suit the climate: seafood and salads and pavlova.

While Australia may not have a santa equivalent of its Easter Bilby, at Christmas we are visited by a native Australian beetle, appropriately named the Christmas beetle, mainly because they emerge from hibernation at this time of year. They then hang around until about February, during which time they mate, lay eggs and then die. And according to my source they can strip whole trees to a ragged mess in a feeding frenzy, not unlike the feeding frenzies of humans during the festive season.

Just on a small tangent, while I was reading about Christmas beetles I also came across the rhinocerous beetle, Xylotrupes ulysses australicus, which grows up to 60mm. I'm now officially a fan. As the information says:
From late December through to February, the males aggregate in huge masses on poinsiana trees in the suburbs of Brisbane - perhaps one in every 100 trees will be targeted. As the males do battle and try to push each-other off the branch, they scare their opponents by making loud hissing squeaks.

If you've spent any time in the suburbs of Brisbane you may find this description applies to humans as well.

There's also Christmas bush – bright red trees that blossom at this time of the year. According to official government sources:

There are many native Australian plants in flower over the Christmas season. A number of these have become known as `christmas plants' in various parts of the country, including christmas bells, christmas bush and the christmas orchid.

When Europeans first arrived in Australia they were delighted that they could pick wildflowers resembling bells and bright green foliage covered in red or white flowers to use as Christmas decorations. This was a huge contrast to the bare trees and dormant gardens they had left behind in Europe.

Clouds of Frangipani dust drifted over rain washed streets this December in Sydney, and after five years away I appreciated the natural decorations more so than before. My mother was startled by my level of excitement when I spotted a noisy miner nesting on the hills hoist on Christmas day.