ok, Christmas...
Basically, it's the same as yours (turkey, chook, veges, christmas pudd), however, if it's 40 degrees celcius, and 85% humidity, some of us cop out and buy the roast dinner from Red Rooster, or have a seafood lunch instead.
Traditions change from family to family, but I can give you the basics of what we did last year, and do most years.
I live out of home, and my flatmate's german, so Christmas Eve we have a party with some friends (also German) and they open their presents from us then (Brad usually only opens the ones from his friends and ONE of mine). German culture has it that you have the big dinner on Christmas Eve, go to midnight mass, and open presents after it, so we usually do something like that.
Christmas day, we open one present each, go to Church, and then head over to my mum's for lunch (Brad's family lives about 1000 miles away), where we usually have a big roast chicken dinner, as well as salads and lots of lollies (choc covered scorched almonds, jaffas, snakes, etc etc).
After lunch, we open presents. It usually goes from whoever is the youngest there, to the oldest. The youngest gets to hand out one present at a time, and we all watch as that person gets to open that present. If there's too many people there (like 10 or something), then we hand all the presents out at once, but still go around in a circle and watch and wait as each person opens the present (you have to read the card out loud too!)...
Later in the afternoon, we go for a swim to cool down, and then head up as a group to Grandmas (she lives about 50 miles from us). Then we get all the cousins and aunts and uncles who live nearby and the cousin's kids, and go through the same thing again, sharing the presents with those we haven't seen as yet. Grandma usually has a roast turkey though, and fine crystal (filled with the BEST fruit punch)...
Boxing Day, we go through packing all the presents, writing thank you gifts and either go to the beach or sleep. My flatmate has a national cricket carnival that we usually have to leave for that day (last year it was in Adelaide), so we'll be doing that again this year, this time flying to Sydney for a week.
As for songs, we all sing the same ones you would (Silent Night, Away in a Manger, Frosty, Rudolph, 12 Days of Christmas, etc etc), however sometimes we change them a bit - I've heard a version of Aussie 12 Days of Christmas, Rudolph on a summer vacation, etc.
Generally, it's HOT, so the more you can get to the air conditioning or a pool, the better!
We still have the decorations, tree, shop windows lit up though... we use fake snow sometimes and a shopping centre down the coast often puts up an artificial iceskating rink...
TV specials - all the usual Christmas movies! We have a carols by candelight in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, and on Christmas Eve the Salvos put on a traditional nativity show at Darling Harbour (near where the Opera House is) that is televised.
In brisbane, in the parklands in the city (there's a fake beach, markets, lots of rainforest places and shops/cafes), a local AOG church puts on the Singing Christmas Tree for free. It's an hour long performance of a choir in a big fake Christmas tree, and lots of dancing, a play and heaps of kids stuff. They have 3 performances for the 10 days up to Christmas, and it's massive. You usually have to get there the performance before the one you want to get to just to make sure you get a seat in the piazza.
Sasch
sorry.
