We all have some sort of break over the Christmas period. What people do will depend on the climate and local customs… Can we talk about what happens in your Country and your family?
I will kick it off. In Australia Christmas is hot… 40 deg C heatwaves, bushfires,
The national tradition is to take 4 weeks annual leave in December/January and take the family camping at the beach. Everything stops, building sites close down, school ceases, the football season is over, parliament is in recession, and even the Prime Minister goes to the beach. The only alternative is the cricket or tennis.
In the inland there is no beach (maybe a river if it rains) so the inlanders play cricket and go to the pub. Farming does not stop for Christmas… it is harvest time and there are sheep to be shorn. Shearing in hot weather is like stoking a blast furnace… only for the young and fit. Firefighting in the heat is similar.
We live in a coastal holiday area. So Christmas is crowded, shops run out of stock, church services are full, there are country fairs and field days. One year the bushfires were so bad at one location everyone had to abandon their houses and retreat to the beach for safety. This year , so far, we only have fires in Victoria. We will go to midnight Mass on Christmas Eve… because it is cooler at night. Sleeping is difficult on hot humid nights.
So till 10th grade we had a week of holiday from 25th dec to 1st Jan. But now in coaching for 11th ( and next year ie 12th also ) we get only 2 days off. That also need to use to cover my JEE backlogs…! Getting into a good engineering clg in India is really hard. Its the 2nd toughest exam in the world.
I am not that very good in the subject it requires ( Physics, Chemistry and mathematics ) but I am good in computer programming and stuff. But sadly, in India, we need to get a good engineering degree to work in the IT field. I personally wanna go to cybersecurity, and have heard that many people in other countries do it even without a degree…but my country won’t allow this ( ill not get a job…)
Coming back to the Christmas thing, I remember till 10th grade I used to do lots of things in this Christmas vacation. We friends used to do a night out, I would do some short courses related to Computers and programming and that kind of stuff!
Every year I promise myself it will be the last in the cold and will spend it in the sun. Auz is just too long a trip and dont want to spend a day getting there and back, same for that part of the world.
Did do a few winters on the algarve portugal which although not hot still allowed me to wear shorts and a tee shirt during the day.
I have suggested 3 months in the canaries, but my wife is resisting due to her adult children, so have offered to fly them out to join us but she remains unconvinced of the idea.
So like the last 5 years we will spend it with her son and take enough food to feed the 3rd world !
The idea of all that shopping and gifts for people you hardly know, perhaps its my age but get more and more grumpy with the whole idea.