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  • Have you ever celebrated Christmas in July?

  • No.

  • Not yet.

  • But you might?

  • Yeah, I hope so.

  • Would you ever think about having Christmas in the winter here, when it's cold?

  • No, not really coz Christmas is in December.

  • Yes, absolutely. We have a party every year.

  • Do you. What kind of stuff do you do?

  • We have a group gathering.

  • There's about four couples. We rotate houses.

  • We have the turkey, the ham, the prawns, big party, lots of drinks, celebrations, presents.

  • It was our first time over here and you celebrate it in July

  • so we put up a Christmas tree in our house and we got a couple of Christmas CDs we've

  • still go.

  • And we had dinner and it was good.

  • So you get two Christmases every year?

  • Absolutely.

  • Sounds like a good deal.

  • Sensational.

  • When it is Christmas time, what kind of food do you eat?

  • I'm English originally so I always have the Christmas roasts, some ham, some chicken.

  • Barbecue on the beach, not traditional Christmas now for me.

  • In Australia I come on the beach for barbecue with friends.

  • We try to stick to something like salads and cold meats, things like that.

  • Lots of plum pudding. That's the most important thing and we used to have the little coins

  • in there but a few of us started swallowing them so mum stopped putting them in.

  • Oh, just anything, just Aussie stuff.

  • You know, ham, chicken...

  • Anything else?

  • Just whatever mum cooks, eh.

  • Pie. I like pie. I always eat pie.

  • And then just have seafood for lunch and then go for a surf or something.

  • So it's great.

  • Chicken.

  • Probably have a big table full of people over and have Christmas pudding, roast turkey,

  • warm roast dinner.

  • Do the traditional like winter dinner time.

  • Because it's always so hot here in summer in December and you tend to eat more salads

  • ands tuff in hot weather,

  • so yeah, have a typical English roast.

  • Now another story about winter in Australia right now.

  • When you think Australia, you probably think this stuff - surfing because it's hot.

  • Well, let me tell you, in winter Australia can get kind of cold and in the Australian

  • alps, between New South Wales and Victoria, it actually does snow.

  • Now Faye comes from a place where it never snows, so how's she going to go when she grabs

  • some of these and goes skiing for the very first time?

  • Faye is from the Republic of Fiji Islands. She grew up in Suva City.

  • She's the eldest of four children and now lives in Melbourne with her family.

  • When Faye was growing up her mum worked as a flight attendant and her dad was a seafarer.

  • So we didn't have the most traditional family set up where we'd have parents at home in

  • the morning and in the evening and in the weekends.

  • And so I grew up with my grandmother on a university campus and I really miss that place

  • because I actually got to graduate from that university.

  • When I was in university I was hired as a research assistant to do a number of geoarcheological

  • trips,

  • so I started to gain an interest in research and in general travelling and that's something

  • I'd like to do more of.

  • A typical day for me would be waking up in the morning, helping my siblings gather their

  • stuff together and get ready for school.

  • Drop them off in the morning, come back, do a bit of housework.

  • I've actually stopped work for a while and chosen to be in the house helping my parents

  • out while we're here in Melbourne.

  • After I'll stay here and hope to pick up career-wise when we do go back to Fiji, or we'll see what

  • opens up here in Australia.

  • Dinner-time.

  • Will you say grace?

  • I'd like to ski because I've never tried it before and it looks like a lot of fun

  • and if I do fall, hopefully it will be in some very soft snow.

  • I think I'll be pretty cold with being in the snow however I think I'll be very excited.

  • Yeah, I'm very excited about it all at the moment. It's good.

  • I'll be getting lessons from an instructor first and yeah, I'm looking forward to my

  • first solo ski.

  • There's no snow in Fiji at all so the closest we get to a white winter wonderland is probably

  • what we see on television and so I'm very excited about being in that much snow for

  • that much time. And actually skiing.

  • If you'd told me that I was going to be standing here in the snow learning how to ski a couple

  • of months ago I would have not believed you but yeah, I'm so thankful I'm here and it's

  • all very new and I'm super excited.

  • Put one foot in between …

  • Skis together, still holding yourself there.

  • There you go.

  • Cut, little cuts ...

  • It's not as easy as everyone's making it look, but yeah ...

  • Building the confidence levels a bit.

  • It's been good.

  • Okay.

  • Okay, so we're going to go down.

  • It's going to be very slippery, and we're going to enjoy that sensation, and then we're

  • just going to push out to manage the speed.

  • Okay.

  • Then push out and when you land dead centre arch, right in the middle of your foot.

  • Learning to ski, I can honestly say is a bit nerve-racking but when you learn it properly,

  • and when you have a good instructor, it's all worth it.

  • It's so much fun.

  • Yes. I'm just glad I haven't fallen over yet.

  • That was pretty good. I enjoyed that.

  • I think it's going to work a little bit more.

  • That's good. That's really good.

  • Keep going.

  • Fantastic.

  • Look back at your curve there.

  • That was really good.

  • I think I could tackle a bigger run on my own.

  • So long as I know the emergency stop I should be fine.

  • I'm six foot two so I've got a long way to fall down if I do fall down while skiing.

  • However, I am interested in finding out what it is all about.

  • This is awesome. Bulla Mount Bulla!

  • Tackling the bigger slope on my own will be quite a challenge but I think as long as I

  • stick to the basics and have an instructor maybe nearby watching over me I should be

  • all right.

  • Yeah, but I'm very excited, looking forward to it.

  • I'm actually pumped although I'm a bit unsure about this slope because I haven't been down

  • this slope before

  • and it's the highest one so far but I'm pumped, and I just want to get in there and do it.

  • I've still got butterflies in my stomach but I know I can do it.

  • I was a bit nervous but I held it in there and just remembered the emergency position

  • and I think I was pretty sure of myself, and I hope it looked that way.

  • But yeah, I had fun.

  • That was my first fall. Let's try this again.

  • This is cool.

  • I mean the beach is awesome but the snow is something different and I'm having heaps of

  • fun.

  • This has really opened my eyes again and this experience has taught me that I need to learn

  • a lot more about the world and yeah,

  • this was awesome and I can't wait to see more of Australia, that's for sure.

  • Faye did really well there. I am very impressed.

  • Now, agricultural shows happen all around Australia.

  • They're all about fun, food, animals and prizes.

  • Selby is about to go to the Royal Adelaide Show and try and win a prize for his girlfriend,

  • Stephanie.

Have you ever celebrated Christmas in July?

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