Editor’s letter: from the desk of The Weekly’s Kim Doherty
There’s nothing quite like an Australian Christmas. Over the years, I’ve been lucky enough to be one of the roughly one million Aussies who each year spend the silly season somewhere else, such as the UK, Europe and Canada. As I write this, I’m in New York, where snow themes are staring out of Fifth Avenue department store windows and red bows adorn lamp posts. It’s all very lovely, but it reminds me that when it comes to Christmas, there’s no place like home.
I love an English Christmas steeped in tradition and no one does cosy hospitality and twinkling decorations like the North Americans, but our Aussie summer Christmases aren’t like anywhere else and, for me, that makes them special.
My grandmother loved an English roast dinner followed by pudding and brandy custard, which she served with aplomb while we all pretended it wasn’t 38 degrees outside. My mum embraced the Americans’ love of fairylights and reindeer antlers with enthusiasm, which mortified me as a grumpy teen, but now I find rather endearing (I can only hope to embarrass my child with the same joie de vivre). With my two-year-old daughter finally old enough to understand what a present is – if not the intricacies of what we’re celebrating – our little family is building its own Aussie Christmas traditions. There’ll be my grandmother’s pudding recipe, but it’ll be previewed with Aussie prawns and salads (for infallible recipes, see our bumper food section, starting on page 118). There’ll be lights on the tree, but with decorations we’ve collected from all around the world (for bright ideas, see page 216). And instead of carols around the piano in the dining room, there’s every chance we’ll end up at sunset on a beach with a guitar, or stretched out in the backyard.
That’s why, this year, I hope you see a truly Australian Christmas reflected in our pages. From the story of Natalie and Simon Steele’s special Outback trip (see page 44), to our beautiful cover star, Jessica Mauboy, and her wonderful family, who generously welcomed us into their Darwin home (see page 16).
And it wasn’t an accident we took the cover photo of Jessica, not surrounded by imported holly, but embraced by a beautiful native Aussie flame tree in the Darwin Botanic Gardens.
One of my favourite things about an Australian Christmas is that we are all free to make it what we want it to be. However you choose to celebrate, we hope it’s a time of peace, reflection and joy for you. Thank you for making The Weekly part of your life this year. From all of us here to you and your family, happy Christmas.