Reasons why Christmas in Australia is a pale imitation:

Hardly anyone puts out Christmas lights. It's light until almost 9 pm this time of year anyway.

There's no Thanksgiving, so there's no day-after-Thanksgiving shopping madness day to set the tone.

No cold weather. Although Christmas started in the middle east, the northern hemisphere totally pwns it now. So much so that they spray fake snow on Christmas displays. (Today's forcast though: "Mostly cloudy with showers. Local hail and thunder. Fresh to strong and gusty southwest to southerly wind. High of 16C -- about 60F.")

A Christmas Story only shows on pay per view.

USA: A Charlie Brown Christmas. Melbourne: Illicit wombat/platypus love.

We miss you all very much!