Pre-Christmas time in Australia

December 18, 2018

Only 6 days until Christmas and I have to admit that the pre-Christmas time in Australia is a bit strange. Of course, some houses are decorated very nicely here too (I would even say more than in Germany), Christmas ornaments hang in the gardens, Christmas trees are set up, and Christmas music is played in the shopping centers. However, I find it difficult to feel the typical Christmas atmosphere. This is mainly because at this time of year I am usually used to cold temperatures and possibly snow, not to bright blue skies and temperatures of 30°C.

For the kids in my host family, it's a completely different story. They are extremely excited about Christmas and eagerly open their advent calendars every day. The good thing is that in the past few weeks I have been able to use the 'if you're not good, I'll call Santa' method quite well. Really practical and highly recommended if you want to make sure the kids are well-behaved and listen. Meanwhile, my host family is on vacation and I have moved to my aunt's place, but not without giving the kids their gifts first, which they were allowed to open right away. They were very pleased and that alone made the Christmas shopping stress of the last two weeks totally worth it. :)

The city is also very nicely decorated and the Christmas shopping is in full swing. Luckily, I finished with my shopping today. I agreed with my family back home that we won't exchange gifts this year. It would have been too complicated to quickly find the right gifts and send them to Germany, it would have been very expensive and the package probably wouldn't have arrived in time. But next year there will be double the gifts! :)

This year, I only took care of gifts for my host family and my family in Australia. On Sunday, I also received Christmas presents from my host family, which is really sweet and definitely not to be taken for granted. Of course, I will only open the gifts on Christmas Eve though.

As mentioned before, I will spend Christmas Eve with my aunt and her family, which will surely be very nice!

That's all for now. Stay tuned for more updates... :)