Christmas Day in Australia - Tents, Trees and Bumble Bees

35 degrees at Christmas you say??! Surely not!

This was a strange, yet very fun experience: Christmas in Perth, WA. I have to be honest, I was very apprehensive – Christmas is my favourite time of year, and it just didn’t seem right without playing in the snow, or wrapping up in scarves and gloves! And it was the first Christmas spent not visiting my Mum too! But it was a very pleasant surprise.

I guess because I was still spending time with family and friends, it still felt very (surprisingly) Christmassy. With such a beautiful day though, there was no way we were spending the day in the house while dinner was cooking. So rather than snowmen and hot chocolate…we hit the beach!

We filled my beach bag with santa hats, tinsel and reindeer antlers and headed for Mullaloo beach. Which apparently is what everyone does at Christmas in Oz, as the beach was heaving with locals and tourists alike! Barbecues and beach towels were sprawled across what was, just a few days prior, an almost deserted beach.

After a few cheesy-momento photographs and a decent, refreshing dip in the glorious sea, we headed home for our Christmas meal. The meal itself was ham, like most Aussies. We still sat around the table for a proper Christmas feast, and my ba-humbug Dad even made mince pies.

Overall there obviously isn’t too much of a difference: Christmas is still Christmas, Santa came and went, there was a beautiful tree and we sat down together to a lovely meal. But the weather can shock you if you’re not used to it. I was pleasantly surprised that it still felt like Christmas – even though there’s no way in hell I would be found swimming at the beach in Scotland on Christmas day!