Black Friday in OZ

      It's Black Friday in Western Australia.  This would normally mean that a great disaster (often a horrific fire) has happened.  This year it means something entirely different.

     Black Friday is the first official Christmas shopping day of season in the U.S.  We've eaten Thanksgiving turkey, watched the holiday parade and/or football game on TV and packed up the leftovers for the following week on Thursday.  But many people get the Friday after Thanksgiving Thursday off work and school as an unofficial part of the holiday. Soooooo, let's go Christmas shopping!  Wooo hooo! Retailers hang their fortunes and futures on this opening weekend of Christmas shopping.  Sales start earlier and earlier on Friday morning in order to get the jump on the competition.  Consumers follow their cue and get in the queue for bargains or the latest kid craze toy.  All expected and part of the social dance in North America.

     I've watched for 10 years to see when the Christmas shopping 'season' starts in a country that does not celebrate any kind of thanksgiving at any time, let alone one near the end of November.  There is no clear cut day or week for the Christmas 'season' to start here as there is back home.

     This year it has all changed. Australian retailers (and more than a few consumers) have been watching retail madness on the other side of the Pacific Ocean for years. The notion of Black Friday in world with increasingly fluid commercial borders has made it less an odd novelty and  more a reasonable concept.  To retailers, of course.  And not just large international businesses.  This year is the first I've seen major domestic-only businesses tout their Black Friday sales. Lots of them, all at once as if there was some secret collusion amongst them. Or maybe they all just independently decided to jump at once at this potential  commercial bonanza.                                                               

      Will it work?  Will this American notion (or nonsense) get a toe-hold in Australia the same way Halloween seems to have inveigled its way in--which is, through retailers primarily fueled by American movies and TV shows?  Hard to say.  Everyone loves a bargain and a firm holiday starting line, for that matter. But no one is getting off work today either to recover from gorging themselves on that fantastic Thanksgiving supper, visiting relatives you hope to see only once a year or to go spend money at the mall or online.

     As for me, I kind of appreciate the reminder of home...as I hide my wallet from any retail temptation.

 

Our Christmas Feast...Water Buffalo

      My hubby does not always walk life's usual paths.  He likes being quirky.  It's the Australian in him.  But his tradition of unusual Christmas suppers has more than a few Antipodeans scratching their heads.
      The very idea of a holiday ham or turkey on December 25th leaves him cold.  He greatly warms up to non-conventional meals and starts menu planning a few months ahead.  As this relieves me of planning and cooking (and keeps him busy enough to not bother me in planning everything else) I encourage it.  Each year I anticipate a meal I could not possible have anticipated: squab, crocodile, guinea fowl, ostrich sausage, and the like.  Notice these "meals" are all meat. In Kev's book, a vegetable is merely meat that has turned green. I make sure that a few plant based vegetables are in the house just to round out the selection on the plate.
      So what did we have as a Christmas luncheon this year?  Bubalus bubalis  or water buffalo.  Really.    Some of the water buffalo had been marinated in a garlic/tarragon/vinegar mix and some just as it came off the hoof.  Served with asparagus and potatoes.  Rather disappointing it was.  Tasted just like tough beef.  But more expensive.  Officially now checked off my life list.
       Where does one find such a delicacy?  It is only available at very specialized butcher shops where crazed carnivores hang out. O.K., but where does the butcher get his meat?  Hard to believe, but right here in Australia.  Really.
        According to the Australian Government Department of Environment and Energy website (where I go for all my party menu planning):

             Water buffalo were imported to Australia in the 19th century to supply meat to remote  northern settlements. The settlements and their buffalo were abandoned in 1949 and, despite harvesting for meat, hides and as hunters' trophies, feral buffalo spread across the northern floodplains. The Brucellosis and Tuberculosis Eradication Campaign reduced feral buffalo numbers significantly in the 1980s and 1990s but numbers are again very high right across northern Australia causing significant damage to wetlands.

Water Buffalo in the bush.

          Oh, so right here in Western Australia and Northern Territories.  I could have big game hunted my supper!  More surprises--there are city slickers here who actually know that one does not have to travel beyond our shores to find these...Bubalus beauties.  I learn something new everyday.  And anticipate next year's unanticipated holiday meal.



    And now that we've eaten, let us take a quick drive around to look at Christmas lights. And again, an Aussie touch ever present here as well.  This festive lighting  was found at the airport of all places.  Happy Holidays, one and all.

Perth Airport boab tree

Perth Airport reclining 'Roo

 

     

FRUITCAKE...Magnificent and Maligned

    Yesterday that most Christmas of confections arrived in my mailbox. A fruitcake.  Hold it a minute, you say, Christmas was two weeks ago. Well, yeah, and this fruitcake was mailed four weeks before that but it went from Texas to France first before being redirected to Perth, Australia. But that's another story.  Can we get on? This slice is winking at me.
     Now if you,  gentle reader, are in North America the very word "fruitcake" tends to elicit a derisive snort. Oh, what a shocking reputation it has as a Z-grade foodstuff. The universal holiday whipping boy. Everybody has a family story or joke of how the same indestructible-in-a-nuclear-blast blob of dubious origin is now used as a doorstop or has been passed from relative to relative for the past six years. Few confess in public to actually eating it. And I have to admit there are some very scarey versions being sold to an unwary public. I've tasted some of them. Ewwwww.

©Collin Street Bakery

      Contrary to this reaction is the one fruitcake receives in the hands of the British (or any of their colonies.) It's sold year round and happily served with tea. Family recipes are guarded jealously and the competition at bake-offs and shows is fierce. Such is a measure of its esteem that it is the traditional wedding cake in the British realm. Even I'm chuckling at that one.
      The well-traveled fruitcake that was sent to me came from my eldest brother's favorite bakery in Texas. He swears by the Collin Street Bakery and is happy to spread the good news. And it is tasty even if the the company is confused between Paris and Perth. It makes the journey intact. (O.K., no mean-spirited jokes here, thank you.)

©Gethsemani Farms

      I don't remember how I came upon my favorite but its charms are apparent as soon as one opens the lid.  This fruitcake is made by monks at the Abbey of Gethsemani  in Trappist, Kentucky and  have been around since 1848.  (No mean-spirited jokes here either, thank you.) The secret to their success (besides prayer)?  Each cake is soaked in Kentucky bourbon.  Jim Beam to be exact. To answer that question now in your mind: the inventory of bourbon is very carefully monitored.  In keeping with tradition (I married an Australian)  I ordered this for my wedding as a secondary or 'groom's cake'.
      It's a funny and absolutely true story-- if a bit colorful-- about this order.  It hadn't arrived early, so Kev was dispatched to pick it up at the post office before he drove up for the wedding.  His far-from-refined Aussie accent was unfamiliar to the postal worker and I'm afraid there was a bit of a communication gap.
       Kev:  "Oiym heer to pik up a coiyk."
       Postal lady:  "Excuse me, sir?"
       Kev: "Oiym heer to pik up a coiyk.  Should be whyting for myee."
       Postal lady: "Sir, we do not use that kind of language around here!"
       Kev: "Oi?"
     It was a few moments before  each understood that Kev was there to pick up a fruitcake, not a female of a certain religious faith.  He started to speak a bit more clearly after that.

So THIS is a normal Christmas!

   For most of my adult life, I have been "away" from home...and usually working...on Christmas Day. In fact, the few times I wasn't clocking in on the 25th felt so odd I wasn't sure what to do with myself.  This is why I don't share some of the common unhappiness experienced by people who aren't living the Norman Rockwell illustrated life.  My complaint as of late is about the oppressive hot weather rather than loneliness in the face of merrymaking.
   But my last couple of years have been completely different.  Kevin's brother, Brian, lives in the area and since the birth of his son Natie has become "more normal" himself.  You know, doing "normal" things especially when it comes to holidays instead of just drinking beer with buddies.  So this is how  my holidays have become normal, also.    It's become a tradition that Kev and I will meet up with Brian, Donna and son for brunch and cracker pulling.  Imagine, how utterly normal to have pancakes (with REAL Canadian maple syrup!) , eggs and fruit  with people you know and like--even related to.  It boggles the mind.  

Assembling Natie's Toy

   I must say it was quite fun watching watching the assembly of Natie's big toy, a parking garage. Not only does it have lots of ramps, it has an air traffic control tower and a helicopter landing pad.  A really odd mix unless an adjunct kit has an airport complete with x-ray machines, Customs inspectors and airline food service delivery trucks.
  As it was quite warm today [ 38C/102F ] we couldn't wait to do something very Australian for the day- go swimming. Not in the ocean, but in our property's pool.  No one else was around.  Only then, at 3 p.m., did we bother to open presents. Who knew Australian Monopoly had a surfboard and jar of Vegemite as player pieces?  Big find of the day for Kev-- even bigger than the new vacuum cleaner he received -- were the advertising circulars my mom used to pad her package. Away from the US for several years now, he had forgotten the prices of groceries and now marvelled: "Well, bread is the same price here. What, you pay how little for beef and booze?  I'm taking this in to show at work!" Trust Mom to get the right thing for Kev.
   Completely missed some favored Christmas movies on TV for all this hoopla, but I must say this 'normal' Christmas thing isn't a bad alternative to being away from home and out of touch.
    Merry Christmas .  Happy 2011. 

'Tis the Season?

   The temperatures here at the bottom of the world are now just getting warmer, not colder. Friends back home bellyache about icy roads and blowing snow and I melt in envy. Australians naturally have their own connections with this time of year: beach, barbecue, cherries, mangoes, school ending for the summer.  I understand it.  I just don't feel it.  The calendar says --to me-- it's December , winter is coming!  January, a long dreary month of gray cold. February, still cold but somehow a happier month.

   As I sit here writing, I have the music from a Columbus, Ohio radio station streaming through their website and out of the monitor speaker.  They have Christmas carols playing round the clock between Thanksgiving and Christmas with an online option of non-Christmas music.  I love Christmas music, never tire of it. Never hear it here on Perth radio.  The 24/7 Ho Ho Ho and Ra Pa Pa Pum from the Columbus station lessens the disconnect I feel in December.

    TV provides only a marginal salve to the seasonal rash.  Contemporary holiday movies can be found in the TV guide and video shelf of the libraries.  But what of the classics I grew up with?   The ancient technology used in the stop-action animation staples of the season --Rudolph ["Let's be independent together"] , Frosty , Santa Claus is Coming to Town--are nonexistent.  "It's a Wonderful Life", "A Christmas Story" and Charlie Brown are also MIA.  They have no connect here. The British remember snow but don't have the American cultural connection.   And that whole winter thing just doesn't register with long time Australians.

   So this day will find me baking gingerbread cookies for various parties to be attended, listening to Kev plan the prawns (shrimp) he plans to flip on the barbie, dreaming of shoveling snow and pretending Gene Autry is singing to me. It's an odd life.

   A touch of irony here.  The tag line for  the Columbus radio station  is : "WSNY...where it's always sunny and 95."
  

Turn Up the Lights

There are few things more mesmerizing than bright lights. We are drawn to them like moths, wide-eyed, slack jawed and thoroughly hypnotized. And so every Christmas, we hop into the car and drive around to get our annual festive fix. The brighter the better. Can you see the lights from space? Excellent. Is all that surging electricity interfering with passing airplanes' navigational equipment? Even better. Last year--my first Christmas in Perth--was without this very important tradition. There wasn't going to be snow but why no lights?

I just wasn't looking hard enough. True, not as many homes put up strands of bulbs, tinsel and mechanical deer nodding on front lawns, but those few who do go on with a vengeance. And with good reason. Channel 7 offers a $25,000 prize for the best display. None of this 'bragging rights' or chest beating superiority that you get back home. They play for all the marbles here. So we went for a drive.

But not random cruising. You won't find much that way. House addresses are posted online with the occasional handmade sign pointing the way from a main thoroughfare. One street, Consulate Court in Thornlie, held particular appeal. As if it were a scene straight out of "Christmas With The Kranks", almost every house in the cul-de-sac had an impressive display (the noticeable holdout was at the beginning of the street.) All gawkers were on foot. It was the only way to keep people moving.

We started taking an unofficial tally of St. Nick's mode of transportation. The variety of vehicle: sleigh, car, bicycle, motorcycle, helicopter, hot air balloon, surfboard, teeter totter and rocket ship.

You might ask if trolling for electric thrills isn't the same without the enhancing effects of reflective white snow, seeing your breath as you exhale and sucking on icicles broken off bushes. Well, the Doctor is in. The Doctor--a cool breeze off the Indian Ocean--provided enough of a chill to make believe. Have I mentioned that I just love Christmas lights?

December 1st

December 1st is a date that may not mean much to you. Just another day.....except here it starts the fall of many happy dominoes.

First, it is the first day of Summer. All seasons start at the first of the month here. Equinoxes (equinoxi ?) are rather irrelevant. To mark this important occasion, the media hits the beach at full force to do stories on all-things-summer-related as if the previous day was Spring's own purgatory. The sun rose at 5:03 a.m. (Daylight Savings is a failed experiment here in Perth) and set at 7:07 p.m. Some people forgot that it is the warm season and were found carrying sweaters to use "against the wind on the Terrace."

The first of December also starts the Christmas Holiday Season. Yeah, the department stores got a bit ahead of the game by the requisite three months, but now municipal workers are putting the finishing touches to the community decorations. People are watching sale circulars for gift shopping and writing greeting cards. A flurry of work/social parties appear on everyone's new calendar page. We had a 13-piece band at our last party and another live band the night before. Let the holiday begin!

It's also blow-fly season. Larger and slower than your average 'house fly' they have a real penchant for people's faces. People tend not to notice the buggers landing on their faces until they've moved to the eyes or mouth (a favorite resting place of "blowies") and even then give only a lazy swat to brush them away. Last year on TV, I saw a high-ranking politician talking on camera seemingly oblivious to the pest traversing his face. I was horrified and impressed until I realized that this is pretty much how all natives react to them. It's we newbies who spend December flapping our arms in front of our faces. Somehow two have managed to get into the house, so now I am permanently armed with a rolled up newspaper. Blowies are not my friends.

Happy SUMMER, Everyone!