Australia trip: Christmas in Australia

Christmas in Australia is really fun - and it's really different from the northern hemisphere. It's summer, it's hot and even with all of the sunny Australian Christmas stuff there are still pictures of snow and reindeer everywhere which is just odd. (We used to spray fake snow from a can to decorate our windows when I was a kid...) We kicked off our Christmas festivities with a visit to Santa. This is something that has definitely improved since my childhood - when poor Santa had to sit in an un-airconditioned mall in scorching temperatures and a red suit! Logan then "helped" his grandmother decorate the tree. My parents have recently downsized their Christmas tree. We're referring to their new tree as a "Christmas pole". However, the best Christmas preparation was the much anticipated arrival of "Dad". Logan had a bit of a stomach bug for a few days so we slowed the pace and had a few quiet days. We moved about a mile down the road to Ollie and Millie's house (cousins) for Christmas eve and had a great Christmas with the whole Australian family which included an impressive family invasion at Grandma and Bill's church. (We won't go into the widespread disappointment amongst the cousins (and in fact, all of the kids attending church) when the new youth minister omitted the longstanding tradition of each kid doing a "show and tell" of a favourite Christmas gift. Suffice it to say there was almost an uprising at the Christmas day church service.)