Christmas in Australia … fun, frantic, and festive
Landing in Australia, in December, feels like being drop-kicked while being powered by eucalyptus and nostalgia.
The plane touched down and I was already sweating through my travel leggings, and regretting every layer of my Northern Hemisphere existence. The air was too bright and too hot, and filled with bird sounds.
Christmas in Australia—the great southern experiment. And this year was all in, full-tilt family-reunion style, with mum (Judy Campbell) as the warrior of patience and pavlova; my sisters, Rachel, Chloe and Lucy, the power trio, each with their own flavour of chaos; and our cousins, Shiloh, Charli and Olli, operating like a rowdy gang with sticky hands.
Mum was in the kitchen, orchestrating 12 things at once and pretending not to be stressed. “Just relax,” she said, peeling prawns. My mum, even though they’ve downsized their home, does Christmas big, with tinsel and a clipboard. She had been planning this reunion for months—and, by God, we were going to have a good time, even if it killed us.
There was no snow, sleighbells or eggnog; instead there was sunburn, sweat and citronella for
mosquitos. And at one point, someone screamed “Snake!” and five people jumped into the kiddie pool. False alarm (it was a hose). Classic.
We took photos that made us look far more relaxed than we were. There’s one of the sisters,
wearing sunglasses, in front of a plastic Santa: Rachel looking angelic, Chloe mid-laugh, Lucy giving the camera her full rockstar energy, and me—smiling and half-melted as I wrangled a plate of cold sausages. Shiloh made up a dance routine and forced everyone to watch, Charli fell asleep in a beanbag covered in fairy bread, and Olli accidentally squirted tomato sauce on someone’s dog. It was festive carnage!
But somewhere in the middle of it all—between the wine, the bug spray and the laughter—something settled in my chest. This is family … the real stuff, with love that was loud and imperfect and drives you crazy and saves your life in the same breath. And I missed it.
On Christmas night, mum sat on the deck with her feet up and a glass of “something strong” in her hand. The lights twinkled, and so did the stars.This … this is the memory I’ll keep when I’m back home and the air is cold, and everything feels a little too quiet. Family is a beautiful kind of mess. I’ll be back. (Next time I’ll bring more bug spray.)
