‘It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas’ so goes the classic song by Meredith Wilson. We all view the holiday season in varying ways: what exactly is a typical Australian Christmas?
For German immigrant Konrad Dimpel and his family in the 60s, Christmas was a game of monopoly or picnicking by the car in the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve in Canberra, playing ball games with the kids, and entertaining baby kangaroos (see Dimpel, Konrad: German Christmas celebrations, Lutheran Sunday School picnic c.1966).
To the Sprod family in 1945, it was the homecoming of the four boys after hard years in the Second World War serving in the Army, Navy and Airforce. Beer, cigarettes and sunshine were never so well earned (see Christmas Crackers 1945).
At the Albion’s place, Christmas coincided with young little Wally’s birthday (clip one) and was, by the looks of it, double the fun, featuring no less than bubble blowing, ring-a-rosie, dance routines and group see-saw rides with the big fella himself (see Albion, Douglas: Children’s Party 1921). Some people have all the luck.
At the Victoria Barracks in Sydney in the 20s, the children had balloons, puppet shows and Santa Claus arriving by chariot with a few men wearing horse costumes and another in a rather elaborate emu suit (see Australasian Gazette – Annual Christmas Treat c.1925).
This entrance was nothing compared to what the folks in Sydney witnessed in 1929. In Here Comes Santa (1929), we see the jolly one make a dramatic arrival to Sydney Harbour by seaplane, rowing to shore to meet the fans (clip one), then greeting over 20,000 people on George Street, and later, sick children at the Royal Alexandria Hospital. All in a days work, I guess.
To the outlaw Burns’ brothers in The Proposition (2005), Christmas day meant death – either they surrender their villainous elder to the police by the days’ end or the youngest will be killed. When he ends up dead before the deadline passes, the brothers break into police chief’s home to give him a gift of their own.
The kids in Bush Christmas (1947) spend the holiday in pursuit of horse thieves, only for them to become lost in the Mara Mara valley, with snakes and grubs as their sole nourishment, before rescuing the stolen property and arriving home in time to feast on Christmas dinner.
However you choose to celebrate the holidays this year we at australianscreen hope you spend the day safe and sound. And if you’re traveling to visit your loved ones, please don’t dilly-dally like John Grant in Wake in Fright (1971) – you never who you’ll end up spending it with. As they say, you thought your family was bad!
