Ok, je vais partager quelques petits histoires de mes Noels downunder, dans la campagne (ou assez pres, dans une petite ville de 2500 personnes).
Je suis desolee que ce ne serait pas completement en francaise, car j'ai pas quelques heures libre pour le faire en francaise...
Ok, I have read Sand's post all about Christmas downunder, and had a few surprises, that some of the customs mentioned weren't familiar to me.
I think there can be quite a big difference between Noel dans les grands cites et le noel assez loin de Sydney, Melbourne, etc.
Par exemple, I've only known one person in my life who had un 'sapin de Noel' en plastique - lorsque j'etais jeune, c'etait necessaire pour etre traditionelle pour avoir le sapin d'un taille de 1.6 mts ou plus avec les lumieres et 'boules' et l'ange et les etoiles et tout ca, to have the scent of pine in the room, the fallen pine needles on the living room floor....
And getting the tree was half the fun....c'est pas tres accepte par les authorities du foret, mais beaucoup (la plupart, probablement) des gens dans ma ville 'voler' leur sapin du noel du foret....le cherche dans la nuit, cacher le sapin dans le voiture...c'est tres amusant.
Et beaucoup de ces sapins dans ma ville sont comme les mauvais herbes anyway - il y en beaucoup dans les alentours, parmi les arbres d'eucalypt - ie they self-seeded and were not planted there anyway.
The only disadvantage with that method we discovered 3 years ago when my aunt went une nuit to get her tree, armed with a hack-saw, but it slipped and cut through tendons on her thumb (and she had to get microsurgery apres le noel). The nerves in it recovered completely after 6 months and now we've decided an axe is much better!
Et lorsque moi et mon frere etions jeune, we always left out du lait et les biscuits pour le Pere Noel, and tried to stay awake late enough to hear him arrive (mais sans succes). We were always awake a l'aube and running to the lounge room, ou les cadeaux seraient toujours sous le sapin....sauf pour une annee lorsque le pere Noel etait paresseux et a decide a laisser les cadeaux au bout du lit de mon petit frere sur le planche... .
Mon petit frere a se reveille et commence immediatement de courir.. He went flying (tombe) sur les cadeaux in his haste to get to the lounge room, got up and continued to run, not realizing till he got there what he'd fallen over....
My mother always cooked the traditional roast (normalement le poulet, pas le dinde) and there would be a ham too. When we were visiting my grandmere for the other Xmas meal of the day, every year it would be chicken and roasted vegetables, et pour le dessert, le 'plum pudding and custard' (avec un piece de l'argent cache dedans comme en angleterre, je crois)
This dessert is on the menu still, even this year at most Hotel Christmas meals in my town and city nearby, and it's really the only time of the year that people here eat this dessert. It's usually reserved for special occasions (though there are much more special tasting desserts than this).
Never mind that it's summer and the roast meal is hot, and so is your dessert (because the custard is) - the traditional meal was always the same, almost like we were living in the northern hemisphere, but none of us had ever seen this kind of Christmas.
I guess the traditions were just handed down through the generations.
Now that I'm older, most Christmases I see of people in my age group have abandoned the turkey for cold chicken and hams, et la famille de mon mari faire le meme chose chaque Noel, - tout le monde cuirent quelquechose et l'apporte so one person doesn't have to do all the cooking.
I've never had a BBQ pour Noel, meme si c'est si chaud, and we've never had Noel at the beach, meme si la plage est seulement 1 heure en voiture.
And another part of tradition still are the Carols by Candlelight that a lot of people go to, or their local Carols night, or going to Church on Christmas Eve.
In my city, we even have a special carols night where the carols are all in German (it's a lutheran church but I think there are very few Germans unless they are quite old)
Each year my city also has a Christmas lights competition, where houses decorate le jardin, le toit, fence, - partout - avec un grand nombre des lumieres possible (quelques avec les 'nativity scenes' too, even live animal nurseries) to try and win prizes of up to $1000.
This year it also looks like a very big attempt to compete with neighbours, and I noticed that the people in the poorest streets of town have the most houses all lit up with hundreds of lights...
One disadvantage of Christmas now that I didn't get when I was young (that was for the adults to be concerned with, I guess) is that even living in a small city, you can't escape the total commercialism of Christmas, the letterbox filled with junk mail from about le fin Octobre, the media, the tv ads, the crazy traffic in the last 2 weeks before Xmas with especially old people wearing hats slowly driving about all the streets and car parks and appearing to be lost...
the Christmas carol music often follows you in every shop you go in to (Please, not the Celine Dion Christmas album!!!!
pressure to keep buying stuff, even if you don't need it and you know your family don't either...
My favourite part of Christmas is the actual day, when all this is forgotten and family can just be together.
My husband has taken on the long family tradition from his father of dressing as le Pere Noel, with complete vetements including the beard and long sleeves, heavy long boots, a huge cushion for padding (as he really needs it) even if it is 35 degrees C.
Il assise sur son chaise au coin de la salle et donnes les cadeaux a chaqun(ou les lutins benevoles comme moi l'assiste).
Chaque participant has to sit on his knee (meme les parents de ses 7 nieces, who are a lot taller than him and almost squash him) and they don't get away with their cadeau until their photo is taken avec le pere Noel et le pere Noel raconte un blague a propos de noel (normalement c'est pas un bon blague) which most people would remember from the year before if they hadn't been drinking heheh.
Voici le partie de Noel que nous aimons le mieux: tout la famille est ensemble, nous mangeons le dejeuner, - mangeons trop, et puis jouer avec les enfants, ou sit around talking and drinking some more, then by dinner time go off to my side of the family to have to start eating again....
Joyeux Noel a tout les FDUers, en Australie ou en France (ou en Canada, la suisse, la Belgique ou wherever else)
Sous le soleil, ou sous le neige...
Amusez-vous bien!
Kate
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