How is Christmas celebrated in Australia?

In Australia, Christmas comes at the start of summer, so the hot weather shapes how people keep it. Families still trim the house and the tree, send cards and sing carols, but Christmas Day often means the beach and a cold meal, and Boxing Day means cricket and a yacht race.

At a glance

• Christmas: at the start of summer
• Holidays: in New South Wales, Christmas Day and Boxing Day
• The meal: often cold, with seafood and salads
• On Christmas Eve in Melbourne: Carols by Candlelight
• Boxing Day, December 26: cricket in Melbourne, the yacht race from Sydney

Christmas words

Australians say Merry Christmas in English, and their summer Christmas comes with a few words worth knowing. Boxing Day is December 26, the day after Christmas Day. A pavlova is a crisp meringue heaped with cream and fresh fruit. And Christmas bush, Christmas bells and Christmas beetles are all Australian, as the rest of this page shows.

Before Christmas

In the weeks before Christmas, Australians trim their houses, send cards, sing carols and set up trees at home, at school and in town squares.

Carols by Candlelight began in Melbourne in 1938, when the radio announcer Norman Banks gathered people in the Alexandra Gardens to sing carols. About 10,000 people came to the first one, at midnight. The idea caught on and spread across Australia.

Christmas Day

On the day itself, family and friends get together to swap presents and share a Christmas meal. With the summer heat, many families skip the hot roast. Cold turkey and ham, seafood and salads fill the table, and dessert might be a pavlova, a crisp meringue heaped with cream and fresh fruit, or the old plum pudding served with ice cream.

Plenty of Australians spend Christmas outside: a day at the beach, or a camping trip that stretches through the holidays. For visitors from overseas who spend Christmas in Sydney, a trip to Bondi Beach has become a tradition; a government page in 2009 put the Christmas Day crowd there at as many as 40,000.

Boxing Day

In New South Wales, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, December 26, are both public holidays, and when one of them lands on a weekend, an extra holiday is added on the Monday or Tuesday after.

On Boxing Day, sports fans have two big events to follow: in Melbourne, the first day of the Boxing Day cricket Test, first played in 1950, and in Sydney, the start of the yacht race to Hobart. The race began in 1945, when nine yachts that had planned a gentle cruise to Hobart turned it into a race. Today the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia sends the fleet off from Sydney Harbour every Boxing Day.

Christmas plants and beetles

Australia has its own Christmas plants: wildflowers that bloom in December, like Christmas bells and Christmas bush. The first European settlers gathered them to decorate for Christmas.

In New South Wales, Christmas bush is a shrub with clusters of cream flowers. As each flower fades in early summer, the sepals around it grow and turn red, looking like petals, just in time for Christmas, a bit like a poinsettia. In 1882 a Sydney newspaper pictured a rowboat piled with it, bound for the Christmas markets. In Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, Christmas bush means other plants entirely.

Australia even has Christmas beetles: big, glossy scarabs, some shining brown, yellow or pink, that appear around December, sometimes in swarms, to munch on gum leaves. All but one of the 36 kinds live only in Australia.

Quick answers

When is Christmas in Australia?

In summer. Christmas comes at the start of the Australian summer.

What do Australians eat for Christmas?

Often cold: turkey and ham, seafood and salads, then pavlova or plum pudding with ice cream.

What is Carols by Candlelight?

It began in Melbourne in 1938, when the radio announcer Norman Banks gathered people to sing carols by candlelight. The idea spread across Australia.

Read on: who brings the presents around the world, Christmas in the United States, “Silent Night”, why it’s summer at Christmas down under and Christmas in July.

Where our facts come from

1. Australian Government, "Christmas season celebrations in Australia", australia.gov.au, last updated July 16, 2009 (Internet Archive capture of August 9, 2011), Section on food, paragraph 1 ("Christmas in Australia comes at the beginning of summer"; cold turkey and ham, seafood and salads in place of a hot roast; the plum pudding with cold custard, ice cream or cream; pavlova, "a meringue base topped with whipped cream and fresh fruit"); section on Australian celebrations, paragraphs 1–3 (the heat shapes which northern customs are followed; houses decorated, cards, carols, trees in homes, schools and public places, children anticipating Santa's visit; gifts and special food on the day; many spend Christmas outdoors, the beach or camping; "up to 40,000" at Bondi Beach on Christmas Day); section on carols, paragraph 1 (the candlelit Christmas Eve carol service in Melbourne; its year not used, see the claim notes); section on sport, paragraph 1 (the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground since the first match in 1950; the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race from Sydney Harbour on Boxing Day); section on native plants, paragraphs 1–2
2. NSW Government, "Public holidays", The holiday table (Christmas Day, Friday December 25, 2026; Boxing Day, Saturday December 26, 2026, with an additional day); the note under the table (when New Year's Day, Christmas Day or Boxing Day falls on a Saturday or Sunday, an additional public holiday on the following Monday or Tuesday); "Public holidays in NSW legislation, Section 4"
3. Australian Dictionary of Biography, "Banks, Norman Tyrell", Paragraph 5 ("From 1938 he organised a festival of Christmas carols in the Alexandra Gardens"; it became a Melbourne institution and spread across Australia and abroad)
4. State Library Victoria, Ask a Librarian, "Carols by Candlelight", Paragraph 3 (founded in 1938 by 3KZ radio announcer Norman Banks); paragraph 4 ("The story goes that Norman was walking home down St Kilda Road…on Christmas eve in 1937"; a woman alone, singing, "her face lit by a solitary candle"); paragraph 5 ("a year later"; about 10,000 at the midnight event)
5. Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, official site (organized by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia), Header (26 December 2026); "About The Race" ("began in 1945 when nine yachts gathered on what was originally planned to be a leisurely cruise down to Hobart"; the spark of competition; Rani into Constitution Dock on New Year's Day 1946); the footer (organised by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia)
6. Australian National Botanic Gardens, "Australian Christmas Plants" and "Ceratopetalum gummiferum" (Growing Native Plants), "Australian Christmas Plants": intro; the caption of the Sydney Mail picture of December 23, 1882 (a boatload of Christmas Bush rowed towards Sydney for the markets); entry "Christmas Bush, New South Wales" (white star-like flowers in late spring, then reddened, swollen calyces in summer); the entries for Victoria and for South Australia and Tasmania (other plants); "Ceratopetalum gummiferum" (soft cream clusters; like Poinsettia, the calyx lobes enlarge after flowering and color; "as each one dies its calyx enlarges and turns red and papery, looking like four or five petals")
7. Australian Museum, "Christmas Beetles" (updated October 31, 2023); CSIRO, "Happy holly days! Meet our 12 species of Christmas", December 2022, Australian Museum, intro paragraphs 1–3 (scarabs of the genus Anoplognathus, large and chunky, metallic brown, yellow or pink; 36 species, all but one endemic to Australia; adults feed on eucalypt leaves); CSIRO, the Christmas beetles entry (adults emerge around December, sometimes in very large numbers); CSIRO, the NSW Christmas Bush entry ("Its sepals… turn bright pinkish red"; "blooms bright red and white in December")

How is Christmas celebrated in the United States?