Sven's life in Oz

Ah, Christmas is coming.  It’s snowing already and the nights are well and truly drawn in.  Kerry Katona has switched on the lights in your local shopping centre and the season is well and truly upon us.  It’s time to down your mulled wine, pull on the D&G winter range you bought in the January sales, and hit the high street: people need presents.

Not for me!  Christmas Down Under is a far more civilised affair.  Don’t get me wrong: I love a traditional, chilly Christmas; it’s just that while you are puttering around jumping over slush puddles and dropping your gloves, I am donning my flip-flops, swanning around Target and then heading to the beach.  And this is just one of the benefits I have discovered in celebrating Christmas on the other side of the world.

First, I have the opportunity to buy sensible, practical presents.  It’s the height of summer here: no one wants tat.  No one would be seen dead in a Santa-laden swimming costume and the shops, correspondingly, seem not to stock such items.  There are a few snowy Christmas windows but they seem incongruous with the weather and, well, just plain odd.  The department stores have not filled up on brightly coloured scarves and comical boxers, because there just isn’t a market for it.  Perhaps this means that there are 18 million Old Spice gift packs making their way to households across the country, but isn’t that better than another pack of roses and a pair of reindeer socks?

Secondly, the postal deadline.  You have to love the post office.  They waste your time day after day with their unending queues and pointless form-filling, and Australia Post is no different.  But they come good around this time of year when they set the posting date so early that you have to have everything done by the end of November to stand a hope of getting it delivered on time.  Last posting from the UK to Australia is 5 December; I got my Christmas list out a month in advance.  Once I’ve sealed up my boxes and sent them back to Blighty, I’ve got three weeks to sit, drink and wonder what’s going to appear on my doorstep come Christmas Eve.  Farewell, last minute panic: hello, Tanqueray.

But finally, and perhaps most importantly, people wear less.  Say what you want about the snug feel of a cashmere scarf, or the warming glow of a festive window on a winter’s night: nothing puts the Happy into Christmas like a man with a tan on Bondi beach.  When was the last time you drooled over anyone dressed head to toe in anti-blizzard gear?  I suppose there’s the thrill of imaging what’s underneath it all, or perhaps even peeling off layer after layer if you get that lucky, but why bother?  Australia is the home of the speedo, and it’s the best gift of all.