A Very Aussie Christmas

Have you ever come face to face with a huntsman? The spider, that is. Not a regular huntsman, although, thinking about it, that would also be quite intimidating. I haven’t ever met either kind, thankfully. But that doesn’t stop me living in arachnophobic fear of a confrontation every time we visit my in-laws in Queensland, Australia. Every time I go to the loo, I prepare myself for the tickle of eight hairy, methodical legs reaching up out of the toilet bowl, feeling for what’s blocking the light; opening a cupboard I brace for something to leap out and spread-eagle itself across my face; moving an outdoor chair or table my toes curl as I imagine being swept away on a tidal wave of arachnids fleeing for stable ground. And if I catch anything moving unexpectedly in the corner of my eye, I freeze and yell for Dylan to come and save me. Which he does, usually, with a few comments on the how poorly equipped I am to live in Australia and a shake of his head. 

I married into Australia and, unfortunately, I am most certainly not cut from the same cloth. I want to lie in long grass, seek out sunshine and sit out at night to watch the stars. Australia keeps snakes in her grass, has no filter on her sunshine and her nights creep and crawl with creatures called things like ‘Death Adders’ and ‘Paralysis Ticks’. I like to wind small cars down narrow lanes, I gravitate towards independent shops and enjoy hopping between countries, as you can in Southeast Asia or Europe. Australia is all trucks and highways, big box retail parks and sits far away from everywhere (except the lovely New Zealand, her more temperate cousin). But these aren’t deal breakers for Australia and me. We get along just fine thanks to the skill of her baristas and vintners, the beauty of her landscapes and the humour of her people. Especially those people willing to step in on an altercation between me and a spider. Or a cockroach. Or any kind of bug for that matter. 

Despite my dislike of creepy-crawlies, I count myself very lucky that we were able to spend to spend two weeks in rural Queensland over Christmas and New Year.  As the perfect antidote to our real life in Mumbai’s dense urban tangle, we ambushed my sister-in-law and took over her lush and spacious farm of a home to host the entire family for both major festivals. Our days took on an entirely different rhythm from our usual city schedule; revolving around scenic drives, pony rides and golden hour beers instead of commuter gridlock, incessant honking and dangerous AQIs. Australian Christmases are as airy as the British ones are cosy and I think this year might just have tipped me over into perhaps, maybe, almost, in some ways preferring a more outdoorsy festive period. 

Of course, Australia can be outdoorsy at Christmas time because it’s summer in December. But more than just the weather, I think it’s Australia’s undeniable Australian-ness that suckered me in on this trip. 

Take BBQ breakfasts, for example. What’s not to love? If you eat bacon and eggs that is. There’s not much point in firing up the barbie if you’re having a bowl of cereal, now, is there? On our first morning in Australia, having flown in late the night before, we were treated to a breakfast BBQ. The eggs sizzled on the hot plate, the smell of bacon hung in the telltale still, dry heat of what would turn into a scorching summer’s day, the kookaburras laughed at us from the gum trees at the back of the garden and I breathed in the unbelievably Australian start to our holiday. 

To get from our first port of call — Dylan’s mum’s house — to our main destination of the farm, we had to drive about an hour and a half inland from the Gold Coast. And what could be more Australian to drive than a ute? In our case, one with a four-person cab at the front, with a covered flat bed at the back. We borrow this beast every time we visit but this was the first time I saw its value in carting our luggage from A to B without compromising the comfort of the people in the car. I don’t really know why Australians love to move stuff around so much but ten minutes on a highway will show you that they really do love it. Spotting a car that’s not a ute, or a caravan and that doesn’t have a trailer attached is about as common as meeting an Aussie who says the name of their country with more than three syllables. On our return journey from the farm to the coast, we not only had our luggage in the tray of the ute but we also had a trailer on the back. Can’t get much more Aussie than that. 

Unless…we had gone to Dan Murphy’s without our shoes. Dan Murphy is one of Australia’s biggest booze retail chains and has huge, warehouse-style stores dotted all over the country. We inevitably made a visit to stock up on enough beer and wine for all the animals, sorry - family members, on the farm. I can’t tell you the number of shoppers we saw who were barefoot. But barefoot booze shopping doesn’t raise an eyebrow in Australia. Going out without your shoes doesn’t attract the judgement it might in the UK, nor the pity it triggers in India. Nope. In Australia, someone not wearing shoes is just yet another someone not wearing shoes. Fair dinkum. 

The day we arrived on the farm, as soon as we had installed ourselves and (bravely) reorganised the entire living area, the first logical thing for us to seek out was cricket. Not the disastrous Ashes series which saw Jasper denounce his British citizenship entirely but a local, community cricket field only a few minutes drive away. The internet told us almost nothing about it, and google maps didn’t seem entirely sure where it was, and yet, as we pulled up alongside its clubhouse, we were silenced by its beauty and serenity. It’s really no wonder the Aussies are better than us at cricket when there are fields like this, sunbathing in the middle of the sleepy countryside; inspiring and inviting young people to join the sport. Jasper and I played in the playground while Dylan rolled his arm over in the nets, and then when we’d swung all we could on the swings, Jasper and I joined Dylan for some family bat’n’bowl. It was only when the snacks were finished, the sun was setting and the midges came out that trundled back to the farm for dinner — from the BBQ, of course.  

The following morning, as I was finishing the breakfast dishes, a pony appeared on the porch. We were expecting a pony, just perhaps not that it would come in through the house. Dylan’s sister Kara had borrowed the pony for Jasper, so he could take care of and ride it during our visit. His name was Squirt and Jasper loved him instantly. Squirt was delivered by a couple of cowboys; father and son. No, really. Proper, Australian cowboys. Cowboy senior looked like he’d been born on a horse, his legs bowed and his face as leathery as a saddle. We even got to see him in action when came back a few days later on his own horse to help herd the cows into the crush for some pregnancy testing (performed by Kara the vet with her arm in a long, increasingly poopy, glove). I thought I knew a thing or two about horses having gone through the standard little-girl horsey phase aged about ten or eleven, but I’ll admit that being handed a pony with little more than a tip of a hat as a G’Day and a See yaz, was a little daunting. Dylan was a little more prepared than I was to take charge of Squirt, but neither of us had fully understood that this was a ‘he’ll-be-alright-in-the-garden-here’ kind of pony. When Kara came home from work, Squirt was rehoused into a small, grassy laneway the other side of the garden fence. One morning he even managed to escape and take himself off to the other side of the farm, but I’ll always think of him as more of a house pony. Just how he escaped from his lane remains a mystery as all the gates were closed, fences high and his legs are no longer than Jasper’s but perhaps he was giving us a Christmas miracle. 

When Squirt escaped, he went to my favourite field on the farm: the one with the kangaroos. Real life, wild, big, bouncing kangaroos — around 7 or 8 of them. The first time I saw them was on a morning run. I was sticking to the mowed, short grass around the edge of the paddock where I was assured the snakes wouldn’t come for me. I crested a hill and rounded a corner and there they were; standing clustered in the middle of the field, alert and watching me as I tried to catch my breath and steady my hands to get a photo. After a brief staring contest, they bounced off to a safer distance in their inimitable and uniquely Australian way, and I was left to continue my run. I saw them half a dozen more times, either while running or while walking with Jasper and Squirt, and each time they stared at me staring at them. The last time I saw them was on an evening ride. The gold and green of the sunkissed grass waved in the breeze as the sun lowered itself down through the flawless, blue sky, before disappearing behind the mountains to the west of the farm. If there’s a more quintessential Australian landscape, I haven’t seen it and even if I do, it’ll have a hard job evicting this one from its current home behind my eyelids when I close my eyes. So much serenity.

Despite being a large farm and farmhouse, there wasn’t quite enough bed space for all fifteen of us present at Christmas lunch, so alternative sleeping arrangements had to be found. Most Australian of all the options was to bring a caravan. And how civilised it was! The ‘front neighbours’ as they became known, hooked their cable to the mains power and made use of the hot showers indoors but enjoyed the familiarity and comfort of their own (motor) home for the duration of their stay. I’d never seen anything quite like it, but now that I have, I intend to do it myself one day. Close enough to be present for all the important parts, but never intruding, and when your social battery runs low, you just pop ‘home’ to recharge it with a short nap. I actually think it’s the perfect set-up for most family Christmases. Add ‘bring your own home’ to your next invite and I promise you’ll thank me. 

And so, finally, to the food. What do we Brits believe to be the stereotypical food eaten by Australians in summer? That’s right: prawns. In this case, not another one chucked on the barbie (in the way we tend to misquote the 1984 Australian tourism ad), but cold, fresh, pink and smothered in seafood sauce. We had prawns for lunch on Christmas and prawns for lunch again on New Year’s — at the request of the birthday boy, my husband. We don’t eat seafood much in India because the unfortunate quality of the produce doesn’t really allow for it to be anything but heavily curried and so when outside of India, we go for broke. A plate of prawns, a bottle of beer, caravan out front, pony out back and a family of kangaroos bouncing around nearby. Now that’s a pretty bloomin’ Aussie Christmas. 

Sadly, all good things come to an end and we had to head back to Mumbai. As we started to pack up our gifts and cryo-vac our sausages, it was clear I wasn’t the only one who had been well and truly seduced by Australia this trip. Jasper, flag bearer for our life in India, wasn’t all that excited to return. He was sad to leave Squirt and the team of highly trained dogs he’d had as always-ready playthings for two weeks. He lamented the lack of grass and trees and open space in Mumbai. He was taking his newly acquired Australian passport to heart by declaring more than once ‘I am Australian now so I should stay in Australia’. Given that we do, ultimately, plan to move to Australia, I considered this all a step in the right direction — the direction of him accepting we have to leave India one day. However, when I asked him if he would like to go to school in Australia, he responded with a loud, shocked, ‘NO!’. So, it turns out, Jasper isn’t ready to move to Australia: he just wants his life to be a never-ending holiday.

Don’t we all, Jasper. Don’t we all.