Christmas in Sydney

Yesterday I bid a final farewell to New Zealand and headed back to Australia, this time to Sydney. One of Sarah's closest friend, Moriah, lives here and she and her family have been kind enough to let us stay with them while we're here.

It never ceases to amaze me how a short little 3-hour flight can turn into 7 1/2 hours of travel time: bus to airport, waiting for flight, flight, customs, baggage claim, train, bus. Either way, I got to the house in the early evening, arriving just in time for one of the Hurst family Christmas Eve traditions - homemade donuts! I could tell immediately that I was going to like it here.

Until I had to get up at 6 am the next day. Christmas morning started off at Moriah's brother's house for breakfast and then we all headed off to their church. In the afternoon, we went to lunch at the house of some very good friends of their family, very gracious people who had a whole house full of people from various countries and cultures over for the day. They live in a beautiful home that overlooks the beach and we ate outside on their huge back porch. After lunch we went for a stroll on the beach (Christmas is a really BIG beach day here) and played games on the deck. While wearing short sleeves. On Christmas. This was the first time I have ever been anywhere warm for Christmas and I have to say that sitting outside in 80-degree weather, wearing summer clothes and hearing the sounds of the ocean, while all delightful, didn't really instill the holiday spirit in me. It was quite surreal, actually. Intellectually I KNEW it was Christmas, but not one outside factor made it FEEL like Christmas to me.

It turns out that for me getting into the holiday mood results from a whole bunch of combined factors: cold weather, seeing the decorations ALL over the place, being surrounded by Christmas music, shopping, being around friends and family as preparations are being made, stores staying open until all hours so people can cram in all of their last-minute gift-buying, all of the over-the-top hubbub that is made about it in the US. Whether or not I even like any of these things (most of them I don't) is irrelevant, but I've discovered that they each play their part in helping gear me up mentally for the holiday season.

On this trip I have had none of those things. It's been warm almost everywhere I've been. I have seen very few decorations; I have been and/or gone past tons of stores that had NO decorations at all, not even one measely string of tinsel! I heard almost no Christmas music in public; even on the bus on Christmas Eve they were playing regular music from the radio. I didn't have to do any shopping of my own. Stores closed at 5 or 6 like normal. In general, Christmas seems to be a much smaller and far more low-key deal here than at home. That part has actually been really nice, how much less commercialized and crammed down your throat it is here.

But, in the end, I just could not wrap my head around the idea that it actually was Christmas. It also didn't help that I wasn't with my family for the day, the first time in my whole life that I haven't spent it with them. It wasn't in the original plans for me to be away for the holidays so the whole time I've been traveling, I fully expected to be home in time for it. It was the one cut-off that I thought there was no way I would go beyond. But I went beyond and, in the end, I regretted it. Turns out I really like my family and I like being with them for Christmas. I missed them a lot and, despite the graciousness of the Hurst family in welcoming me into their family Christmas, I spent most of the day feeling bad about not being at home. So, live and learn.

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And now Christmas is over here even though it is just beginning back home. Another concept I can't seem to wrap my head around!