Doghead's Cosmic Bar

I've always wondered how people deal with Christmas in the summer. Do aboriginals in the southern hemisphere have winter solstice festivals that celebrate snow and keep fires burning at this time of year?

Isn't it odd that man would stick with something artificial like a calendar, rather than something real like the seasons. I can't picture the Christmas seasons without winter. Oh it does get confusing!

The aborigines have more sense - 35 millenia have taught them that.
But the white man still eats roast turkey with all the trimmings, and a flaming christmas pudding on one of the hottest days of the year.

Go figure!

Witchety grub and brandy butter? Sounds good to me!

To the best of my knowledge (and granted it's hardly extensive) Australian Aborigines don't have specific annual festival type events. At least none that I can recall.

As for the Aussie Christmas, we have a pretty broad approach. Some people do go in for a more British based roast meat and flaming pudding approach certainly. Turkey isn't particularly popular in Oz, so it's more likely lamb or beef. A lot of people do a big barbecue and enjoy the outdoors. Some people do concede a little to the weather and just do big meals of cold-cuts and what have you. Lighter options like ham and fish and chicked crop up a lot too. Christmas pudding isn't always served hot, sometimes warm or cold, and almost certainly cut with ice cream as well as custard. Last year we didn't do christmas pudding at all (although my uncle did crack it and whinged while he ate his delicious black forest ice cream).

And besides, saying it's one of the hottest days of the year is a big leap. I live in Melbourne, where if you feel like complaining about the weather, you get told to shut up and wait fifteen minutes. By then it'll be something completely different, and either you'll quit complaining or you'll really have something to complain about. I've known Christmas days that have been a wet, windy, miserable 20C in the middle of a week of hot, humid 35C+.

Hey wet windy miserable 20c is an Alberta summer day! The high today is 19 low of 8 We had a wonderful thunderstorm last night.

Sounds just like the weather in southern Sweden, except for the thunder..

Hey wet windy miserable 20c is an Alberta summer day!

I second that - 20C is hot enough to see the beaches packed here! And it's always wet and windy in (Old) South Wales.

All I can say to that people is . . . move.

to somewhere that gets as hot as 35C? No way - I'd die!
It's too hot here already in the summer - if global warming keeps up, I'm going to head north, Greenland perhaps. We Celts have evolved to like the cold.
20's just about tolerable, 30+ is my idea of hell, and definitely time to head for the hills!

Corwin, I've often thought of moving form Chicago, but I have family obligations here. Besides, the summers are usually nice. I dislike the winters though, despite the fact that I am fish-belly white and should have been genetically programed for cold.

I like weather where I can wear cute little sun dresses and sandals and walk on the beach. If I want snow, I'll drive to the mountains for a weekend (in my head I live in California). Oh, and I hated offices that set the air at 65 (very cold) so I have to bring a sweater and heater in the summer instead of dressing for the natural season as I experienced it on the communute. Let the guys take off the jackets and ties and set it at 72 (barely reasonable) for gosh sakes.

/end pointless rant about weather

Don't knock the weather. If it didn't change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn't start a conversation.
(Kin Hubbard (1868 - 1930))

I live in Nevada.. HOT.... VERY HOT.
Like 110 degrees F hot lol.
I don't know what that is in celsius... because I am a stubborn American who would rather struggle with a crazy system of strange numbers instead of going by 10s...