Christmas Abroad: Enjoying sausages on the beach in Sydney on Christmas Day!
Áine Moore is from Mountbolus and has been living and working in Sydney since May. She planned to go back to her teaching job in Ireland in September but says she “fell in love with the lifestyle” in Australia and lives in an apartment which is just 10 minutes from the beach!
The biggest difference between being at home for Christmas and being in Sydney is the heat. “It's very hard to feel Christmassy and listen to Christmas music when the temperature is in the 30s,” she says. “There isn’t much of a build up to Christmas or any hype around turning on Christmas lights which feels strange, but I'm learning to embrace the Aussie-style Christmas with a barbecue on the beach!”
As Christmas is her favourite time of year, Áine says she will miss being around her family and admits its difficult “not being able to help out with buying presents and putting up decorations”. She adds that Christmas in the Moore household is “a proper event” and her Mam, Nuala “is very dedicated to decorating our house to the highest standard.”
The best part about living in Sydney is “definitely the weather and living so close to the beach” but the worst part is the fact that Áine has to travel an hour outside Sydney for work and is gone from “6.30am to 6.30pm” every day. “A little bit longer than your average teaching hours,” she points out.
Christmas Day this year will be spent “on the beach on Bronte” where Áine says they will be more likely to have “sausages and burgers than turkey and ham” she says. She will ring in the New Year celebrating her friend, Sarah's birthday, together with their friends in the Botanic Gardens “with a good view of Sydney Harbour and all the fireworks.”
Áine would like to send Christmas greetings to her Mam and Dad, Aidan and Nuala Moore, brothers Brian and Ciarán, sister Sinéad, and her extended family and friends. “I hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas and I will miss you all very much,” is her message.
Aine's friend, Sarah Byrne, is also from Mountbolus and she decided to move to Australia “for a new experience” and currently lives in the Sydey suburb of Coogee with her “lovely housemates and boyfriend” with the beach close by and her two best friends “living around the corner.”
Her first job was as a traffic controller but after two weeks she “hung up the bat” and returned to social work, which she had been doing in Ireland, and she now works in children's services.
She says “melting in the heat instead of being glued to the fire” is the biggest difference between Christmas in Sydney and Mountbolus. “It's hard to get into the festive mood when you're away from home, but it's amazing to get the opportunity to live across the world experiencing a new place and enjoying being by the beach every day in the sun!“
Sarah will spend Christmas Day this year with her friends “on the beach” where “instead of turkey, we'll be having a barbecue which will be very different from my usual Mountbolus day”, she says. New Year's Eve, which is her birthday, will be spent “watching the Sydney fireworks from the Botanical Gardens.”
Sarah has many great memories of Christmas in Mountbolus, especially “watching Arthur Christmas on the couch with my brothers, eating After eights and pretending not to hear my poor mother asking for help in the kitchen.”
“By far the worst part about living in Sydney is being so far from family and missing everyone,” says Sarah Byrne, who would like to send Christmas greetings to her Dad Paul, her four younger brothers Hugh, Cathal, Cillian and Darragh, her Granny Ruth Byrne and her “amazing Mam", Mary Clare Mullen, whom she says she “misses so much".