First of all: We wish you all the best for 2009 !
After setting up the Christmas Tree and the Christmas Carols it was fun to experience the way Christmas is celebrated here. We went for a day to the Brisbane Central Business District to look around. Already in October the shops were decorated for Christmas and started selling typical Christmas products. In the beginning of November Santa, led by his reindeer, is entering the city with the Christmas Parade(s) and there is also a multicultural Christmas Parade. In the weeks before Christmas a lot of activities and attractions are organized with fireworks every evening.
In front of the Brisbane Council we found a large Christmas Tree with a large “Christmas Tree Ball” and in the Queenstreet a Theater acts were performed and there was a Singing Christmas Tree with a choir integrated in a Christmas Tree.
In the Myer shopping centre kids could take a ride through the shop with a Christmas train, they could visit Santa and they could colour a picture with different colours of sand. Behind the windows sophisticated stories with Santa and his helpers were shown with mechanical moving puppets “How Santa really works”.
Several streets in the city were incredibly decorated. Contests are stimulating streets and individuals to decorate their houses and some homes are even open for the public to have a look inside.
At school Nicole got many Christmas cards from children in her class. Some of the with candy canes. Candy canes are very popular here and as a result we had a lot of them in the Christmas tree.
The day before Christmas Nicole found a Christmas Beetle in the garden. We had never heard about it, but here it seems a well know animal showing up around Christmas with golden shiny wings.
Also here Christmas is very much a family event. When Christmas finally was there we enjoyed to be invited by Dutch friends with young children. The kids could have a swim in their swimming pool and we had a Barbeque.
When Jan was walking along the house he suddenly heard a strange noise and then saw a snake hiding behind the basketball net. So he moved the basketball net to see the snake more clearly whereafter the snake fled into the garage. That was not a place to keep it, so some action was taken to remove it.
According to Dutch tradition we had a “Nieuwjaarsduik” (New Year Dive) on the 1st of January with other Dutch families. With a temperature above 30 degrees this wasn’t too bad, although the “Unox erwtensoep” was missing.
This high temperature during Christmas really was weird. It was unreal and didn’t give us the usual Christmas feeling. Anyhow, until now our (plastic) Christmas tree still didn’t melt.
From Australia we would like to thank you for tracking our news on the website in 2008 and staying in touch. We (kids included) really appreciate that. And again we wish you all a very good 2009 !!
Best wishes from Jan, Anita, Nicole and Jorick
