Christmas comes right in the middle of the southern hemisphere's 'summer vacation', so most kids have already been out of school for several weeks by the time Christmas rolls up, and continue to be for several weeks afterward too.
I'll echo what Dav and TDC have said. My Christmas is pretty much just an extension of usual western 'summer holiday' fare. Barbeques, beaches, tanning, throwing the football around; y'know, summer outdoorsy stuff.
This Christmas I'll be heading to my cousin's place in Central Otago. A very hot, dry, rocky, hilly area (where they filmed the scenes for Rohan in the LotR trilogy to give you a visual image). We'll do the whole Christmas Day gift-giving thing, then have a barbeque lunch and a roast dinner. There are a fair few rivers around Alexandra (the small town where we'll be staying), and my cousins own a jet boat, so we'll do some water skiing too most likely. I havn't been there since I was 14, so the whole affair should be great fun.
So far we havn't had much of a summer here. It has been wet, rainy, and even snowy in some areas for the past few weeks. At this time of year the Southern Alps (the 'Misty Mountains' from LotR for yet another visual image) are usually bone dry, but I was driving past them a few days ago and they were covered in snow. Not very nice considering December is usually sun-tan time [img]smile.gif[/img] Here's hoping things heat up a little in time for Christmas (or 'end-of-year, summer-time, present-giving day' as I like to call it, being a non-Christian
).
And no I've never dreamed of a white christmas. I'm not a huge fan of snow. I only like it when it's asked for, ie: when skiing or snowboarding.
[ 12-13-2004, 06:39 PM: Message edited by: The Hierophant ]