For those of us in the northern hemisphere (or at least the US), Christmas imagery is almost synonymous with winter imagery. Snow, evergreen trees, holly with red berries, even Santa in a fur-lined suit, even in the South, where we're terribly unlikely to see anything in real life that will ever fit that description.

Obviously for those of you in the southern hemisphere where Christianity is as prevalent as it is in North America and Europe, what is Christmas imagery like? I mean, it's summer down there. All the winter imagery would seem out of place to me.

The reason I ask in particular is that I recently got a Christmastime catalog in the mail from a company that sells ostensibly Kiwi-made merchandise and it had a picture on the cover that seemed to imply that it was a New Zealand sheep farm, but there was snow on the ground and a Christmas wreath hanging on the split-rail fence. So it was either not New Zealand or it was not Christmastime.

Well, it was snowy and tree-y, so that probably wasn't the case either.

Also, do they build split-rail fences on glaciers?

New Zealand, December 2001:

Australia, December 2004:

Raffles, Singapore.
Christmas Day 2004


Manly Beach, Sydney.
New Years Day 2006

Cool! Exactly what I wanted to know. So it sounds just like the northern hemisphere except that it doesn't match what's outside. Gotta feel for those fake Santas in "fur" in summer, though.

This strikes me as really, super funny. "Christmas" was placed on 12/25 because the "pagan" peoples of Europe already celebrated the solstice around that time. Of course, the solstice was a HUGE deal for people because they were so much at the whim of weather.

As I'm sure everyone on this BBS knows, we have "Christmas lights" and "Christmas trees" because the lighting of things is a celebration of the light returning (days getting longer post-solstice), and the beginning of the end of the freezing, starvation and darkness -- at least for a year.

What strikes me as absurdly funny about this is that on the other side of the world, the days are getting shorter, but its still being "celebrated" and being celebrated with lights! That's just too funny to me.

Talk about people forgetting about a symbol's referent! (not that anyone in the Northern Hempisphere ever thinks about it either)

Jim

Hey, you have that camera from that Twilight Zone episode.

Ok, only slightly related to topic... but, you know how Christmas and New Years fall on the same day of the week? Well, in at least two years in the 1970s they did not fall on the same weekday.

Can you explain the circumstances of this?

tanstaafl.

They never fall on the same weekday in the same year, if that's what you're getting at.

What, did they fall on the weekend?

Attempting to clarify the question:

Christmas Day is 25th December. The immediately-following New Year's Day (1st January of the following year) is always exactly a week later. Thus, in a given holiday season (24th Dec to 2nd Jan, for example), they fall on the same day of the week.

You are asserting that, at least twice in the period 1970 to 1980, this didn't happen.

Have I understood the question correctly?

I vote that the airplane takes off.