Australian Christmas carols? Do share! I wish they'd play more of the traditional carols here. Most of it is the newfangled nonsense or older stuff that should never have survived longer than its first play.

We do have a couple I like, though I don't know if they are the ones ILF is complaining about. One is The Silver Stars are in the sky which mentions the boobook owl which is in my signature. Another is the Three Drovers. I've linked the first one, and you can see on that website, links to other Australian Christmas carols, some of which are very clearly spoofs of more familiar carols. Deck the sheds with bits of wattle, indeed! Not to mention Aussie Jingle Bells.

Hawaii is really the only state here that has a "warm" Christmas, and oftentimes Santa is portrayed as wearing a Hawaiian shirt, Bermuda shorts, and sipping on a pina collada . Anything like that down there? I'd love to see a few snapshots of Australian Santa being pulled by 6 white kangaroos.

We have have Santas in swimwear on a lot of Christmas cards in past years, though frankly the standard of Christmas card has gone downwards over the years. Even Australiana is hard to get, sometimes. Nowadays all you get is a Christmas tree, a present or some decorations, bells or something. Some years we got penguins, I don't know why. And there isn't a variety in a pack of cards very often, which I dislike. I don't like sending the same Christmas cards to people I know will be seeing each other over Christmas, eg in-laws. I prefer to share them around a bit better than that.

Once upon at time we could get nice cards with a nativity scene on them, or the Three Wise men, or Shepherds or something properly Christmassy, though I agree the ones showing Victorian/Edwardian (as in 1837 to 1914) scenes were a bit much down here. If you google "six white boomers santa" you can get other pictures of Santa, maybe in swimming gear. But I am sending these two Christmas cards with Santa with six white boomers to all who participate on these threads. Merry Christmas.

Hi from New Zealand, where our best known local Christmas carol is Te Harinui ("the good news").
http://folksong.org.nz/nzchristmas/te_harinui.html

It tells of an event we are about to celebrate the 200th anniversary of, the first sermon preached in New Zealand, on Christmas Day 1814. Samuel Marsden told his Maori listeners of the good news of Christmas.

Many of us have British backgrounds, and enjoy the traditions of our parents or grandparents, increasingly adapted for warmer weather. Our family has often had an outdoor meal either on the deck (wooden patio) at my sister's, and another friend likes to have a big table out in their back garden if the weather is fine; I am having Christmas day with those friends this year, and we are going out for a picnic and meeting up with others.

I am sure nz would have nice weather at christmas. Not too hot or too cold for outside?

As for Christmas carols, yes I was specifically referring to that song about wattle. I work with a women who is constantly singing it. I didn't like the song much before but now....

I have seen some Australian christmas cards. I remember one had a kangaroo at the bbq using some tongs.