Christmas and Boxing Day in Australia

I know Christmas is well behind us now, but I just want to get this one out of the way. Then I’ll move on.

This was how my Boxing Day went. You can read more about it below this video…

We had already arrived in Australia by December of last year, so this was our second Christmas here. But last Christmas was different. Our furniture consisted of a large cardboard box as a table. The box had previously housed our new barbecue, essential equipment to purchase immediately upon arrival in Australia. We also had a couple of beds and some chairs.

The rest of our worldly goods were floating in a huge tin somewhere at sea. So this Christmas was totally different from the last simply because we were so settled in. We had also made many friends.

For Christmas day we invited some good friends of ours around for Christmas dinner. They’re an Australian family who we were lucky enough to meet within six weeks of arriving here. A couple about the same age as us with two boys (9 & 7) and a girl aged 5. All the kids had a great time and if I’m not mistaken, so did us oldies.

But for Boxing Day, we decided to go all Australian and head for the beach.

Our original intention was to go to Mooloolaba, about an hour and a half north. But the traffic was a bit heavy. Boxing Day traffic is notoriously busy here. That’s according to the locals. Having watched the sunset on the M25, I’m not so sure. Anyway, traffic was apparently heavy further up the Bruce Highway (yes, it’s really called that) So a quick change of plan saw us heading for Bribie Island, an hour north.

One thing about Christmas here in Australia is it is really difficult to accept that it really is Christmas. As I am writing this (31st December), temperatures outside had just hit 100°F. (38°C). Fortunately for us, on Boxing Day it wasn’t so hot. It was about 82°F(28° C) and there was a fair bit of cloud cover. When you live in Brisbane, you learn to love some cloud cover.

I’ve got to say that I was a little dubious when my wife first mentioned the idea of Boxing Day on the beach. Why can’t we just lounge around indoors all day? Watching telly. Drinking beer. Eating nuts. I’ve handled Boxing Day that way for many years. Why change now?

Apparently, because that’s not why we moved to Australia.

This time we were going with some English friends. Again, we were lucky to meet this family very early on, I think within two months of arrival. They have two daughters, aged two and four. We were also meeting their friends who also have two daughters of the same age.

So there we were, three couples, some folding chairs, some buckets and spades, a blowup surf board and five little girls aged between two and five. And a picnic.

I hit three “firsts” for a Boxing Day.