Christmas, Territory style.

Christmas is upon us. Darwin is lit up with lights. Decorations hang in the shop windows - And it's thirty five degrees.

Sweating perfusely, looking at the decorations as I pass the shops. Craving for a nice tropical smoothie to cool me down, or the divine feeling of an air-conditioned shopping centre after baking in an outdoor oven. Such is my surreal Christmas experience.

I was sitting in a pub on the main street the other night, watching a tropical storm. The sweat was dripping off my skin and sticking to my clothes and I was treating myself to a nice cold beer. I was sitting across from an advert for a Christmas party in the (aptly named) Monsoon Bar. Beautiful busty babes wearing santa hats and drinking cocktails. The same, but different.

Last night I went to a Christmas party in the local bowls club. It was after dark but it was hot as ever (30+). There were a few elves running about, as well as a lot of santas, and fidel castro ('the only man who can take christmas and give it back again'!). There was also an absolutely vile santa claus, belly hanging out, smoking a joint as he played bowls.

This was Christmas, Territory style.

So dinner was served. A nice big turkey, with roast potatoes and lovely hot vegetables?

No.

Cold ham, salad, prawns, oysters and cold potatoes. Apparently this is typical Antipodean Christmas fare ('it's too hot to eat anything else')

So I sat eating my cold food, drinking a cold bevvie, and watching the tinsel, and sweating like a fat person eating a big mac.

It just wasn't right. Where was that cold that goes deep into your bones? Where was the mulled wine and the open fire? I remember last year doing some shopping in town. It was freezing cold, pretty dark and I was shattered. Going into a pub and sitting beside a big warm fire. Ah, bliss.

The air you are surrounded by in Darwin, is a warm fire. Bliss is getting indoors, peeling off your soaking clothes and lying naked under the air-con.

Still one thing is the same. Lots of Christmas parties with drunken idiots staggering around in Santa hats. That is universal.

And well a Fidel Castro lookalike distributing the secret santa (or christmas cringle as the aussies call it), you can't beat it. And yes, you had to sit on his knees.

I got drunk, played with my 'snap hands' (my christmas cringle present) and talked about all the important things with other drunken randomers as the sweat dripped off my face.

Some things never change eh?