As every webpage and blog seems to want to remind me, Christmas is FIVE WEEKS AWAY. I'm always behind on this because as a transplanted Northern Hemispherer, Christmas in the middle of summer is plain weird and gives me none of the seasonal cues I would have had in Canada - like snow and cold. One of the biggest problems I have is that none of the traditional Christmas things make sense down here - rich heavy food, snow and winter-related symbolism, 90% of Christmas cards, wreaths, anything with red velvet. For those in the Northern Hemisphere, try to imagine having Xmas in July - can I interest you in some mulled wine, a roaring fire and snowflake imagery? No?
To that list I can also add most Xmas tutorials or winter issues of magazines not produced here or in Oz. However, I just took a quick look at
the most recent Sweet Paul (winter 2011) and discovered that a non-traditional take on Xmas like he has lends itself very well to a summer Xmas here. So if you're reading this while reading jandals (or flipflops or thongs or whatever your lingo is) then have a look, you might be surprised.
