kerravonsen | (Reply)

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Oh my. I am very NOT surprised that you asked this, and they are fascinating questions... which I don't really feel qualified to answer! Yes, I'm an Australian, but I'm not a folk-historian, I'm not even a historian. I'm not even certain I could talk about "universal Australian customs" because things like Easter and Christmas... I think the way they are celebrated here depends hugely on family customs, and they vary from family to family. Just to give an example, my family likes to celebrate Christmas with a full Christmas dinner, while sister-in-law #1, her family celebrate it with a picnic lunch in a park. And we're all nth-generation Aussies. (shrug)

Christmas carols give me a bit of cognitive dissonance sometimes, because there are so many that aren't about Christmas per se, but about winter. Which it isn't, here. As far as I know, there only exists ONE Australian Christmas carol, that is, one which is written to take account of the fact that it's summer at Christmas time.

The north wind is tossing the leaves.
The red dust is over the town;
The sparrows are under the eaves,
And the grass in the paddock is brown;
As we lift up our voices and sing,
To the Christ-child the heavenly King.

Not a particularly inspirational or inspired carol, but it's the only (serious) one we've got. I think there's one about Santa getting sunburnt or something, but that obviously isn't serious.