Christmas in the Outback

Australia and the U.S. have a lot in common. Living here doesn’t cause most Americans any major culture shock; however Christmas is a big adjustment. Having left the states in August, I haven’t experienced much change in climate in the past 5 months other than a drop in humidity. Generally Thanksgiving heralds in the start of the crazy season. In case you didn’t know it, there is no turkey day down under. Dave worked that day so it just sort of came and went and I went on golfing. It wasn’t until we were on holiday in Adelaide that it hit me - Christmas was just a around the corner! The shopping in Alice is strictly a necessity activity, not a pleasurable pastime like I knew in a previous life. I had thought that being in Adelaide in early December would help put me in the Christmas spirit. But for a Midwestern girl, Christmas shopping in shorts and sandals is just plain weird.
Dave and I did our best bring a little holiday spirit in to the neighborhood. It was 90 degrees the day the spirit stuck us, but we weren’t to be deterred. We cranked up the Chipmunks Christmas CD, cracked open a beer and put up the tackiest decorations that K-Mart had to offer.


My darling husband actually apologized for being a redneck! I had to gently explain that there is a big difference between tacky and redneck. Without telling too many sordid tales from my past, I explained that boys from New Jersey didn’t even register on the redneck meter.






When it came time for indoor decorations, I decided to forgo the insanely expensive artificial tree and go native. I convinced my loving husband to join me for a hike into the bush in search of the perfect Christmas tree alternative. In just one short year of marriage, I have learned to recognize the “I don’t have a clue about what you’re talking about– but I’m willing to play along” look on his face. He delivers that look a somewhat regular basis, but is almost always willing to follow along. Only on a few occasions has he argued with me and he always blames his injury warning system. There is a reason I haven’t let this man spend much time with my friends and family. However – I digress; this story is about how we came to have a Christmas branch instead of a tree. Dave grudgingly joined me on the hike and even carried the top half of the tree I cut down back to our house. Our branch was like most of the Christmas trees I’ve selected over the years. It was much larger once we got it in the house. I ended up using only about a third of the branch he had carefully carried a half mile. Dragging it might have broken off some really important bits! I knew he thought I was off my rocker when I anchored the stick in a bucket of cement. I’ll admit that cement was overkill, but there wasn’t any plaster to be found in Alice. Even when we started decorating stick, I could see that he had his doubts, but he eventually admitted that the Christmas stick was very cool.




It was certainly a conversation piece and I’m happy to believe that we are the envy of all our friends here in Alice.