With Love - Bogan Christmas and Wog Christmas

There are two Christmases in my life. There’s Wog Christmas and Bogan Christmas. I must stress that I do mean that in the most endearing way possible and to avoid confusion, I’ll keep referring to them by those names.

When I was younger I only knew Wog Christmas. It’s celebrated on the 7^th of January and no, I’m not Muslim, Hindu or Jewish. It’s still celebrating the birth of Christ, that’s why I still call it Christmas! (As soon as I say it’s on a different date, people assume it must be something completely different). Wog Christmas revolves around what most woggy celebrations do – Food. Lots of food. On Christmas Eve we would go to Church, which goes for a million hours, but we would go for the last couple – from 10pm onwards, and then we would head to someone’s house and meet with aunties, uncles and cousins for a ridiculous amount of food. 

Image Source - We do eat in chairs but the amount of food is the same!

Food after midnight you say? Yes, that’s right. We would eat after midnight like it was dinner time and then the adults would drink scotch and party like it’s 1999 (it actually was back then) usually until 3 or 4am. Then we would all meet again in the morning, which was Christmas Day and eat leftovers from our Midnight feast in a park somewhere. Where’s Santa? Where’s the presents? Where’s the backyard cricket? Well we didn’t really have that. My parents never tried to convince me that Santa existed – I know, I still have therapy because of it. Ironic huh? Actually, not believing in Santa didn’t scar me one bit. I know it is to the shock horror of my husband but I’m not a huge believer in lying to my children. These are the effects your upbringing have on you I guess.

I was lucky enough to become a part of Bogan Christmas when I met my husband. My first Aussie Christmas was, in my eyes, something out of a family sitcom. Beautifully decorated Christmas tree, loads of presents underneath, waking up in the morning handing out presents, then having the most amazing Christmas lunch, complete with Christmas crackers. Shit! I never realised people actually did that! It was just like on TV!

Image Source

 And hang on a minute, nobody was yelling, or arguing or laughing ridiculously loud. There was also nobody trying to shove food on your plate. You actually got to SERVE yourself! I was flabbergasted, and well, it was kind of nice!

Some people might shudder at the thought of having to celebrate Christmas twice but I actually enjoy it. These days Wog Christmas is a lot more subtle, and last year, actually DID involve lunch on Christmas day and presents for the kids...there was still all the noise and copious amounts of food though, but you can’t take that out. That’s not Wog Christmas, that’s Wog Blood.

I hope you all have a great Christmas, and if you do something different, I’d love you to share. Traditional is fantastic, but so is a little bit of flavour. I'm lucky to be a part of both.

Living the Multicultural Dream - An intro...

By Angela East

I take a deep breath, I walk down the aisle, I hear the monotonous rise and fall of chanting, the smell of incense burning and the occasional, celebratory yodel that sounds like a mix between native Indians and someone screaming as they fall out of a tree. There is bright red carpet like a runway and men with long beards, neck to ankle gowns and giant crucifixes around their neck. And then, on the flipside I also see a Catholic priest, Aussie groomsmen (looking confused and amused) and a white, blue eyed groom with a wide grin on his face.

Photos by the gorgeous and talented Clare Metcalf

Yes, this was the beginning of my wedding. This is the story of how lucky I am to have the best of two cultural worlds.

Egyptian weddings are a crazy mix of wailing, laughing, chanting and cymbals and when you are marrying nothing but a genuine Aussie bloke, somebody who is the epitome of everything Australian (beer, football, cricket, Cold Chisel) you know both of you are in for a bit of a cultural rollercoaster.

My parents lived in a country where marrying 2^nd or 3^rd generation cousins was perfectly acceptable – “At least you know they come from a good family!” they would say, or where a man (that you have never met) could come to your parent’s door and ask your father for your hand in marriage, simply because he had been watching you as you bought groceries at the market and came to the conclusion that you were wifely material.

So needless to say, When I introduced my parents to Steve (who says g’day like it’s a question when he answers the phone – g’day?) let’s just say, they weren’t overly impressed. He wasn’t dark, or a doctor and I had chosen this man all by MYSELF! How could I? But they had no choice but to be eventually won over by the charms of his easy Australian humour and his way to see everything in optimism.

The cultural mish-mash of events that took place in the course of our engagement period were both funny and terrifying to me. Some of them were the simplest of things, like my parents forgetting to give Steve a knife and fork when we ate - I don’t know why, but Egyptians tend to eat with spoons or their hands. Then there was the countless “Pardon? What was that?” as the language barriers posed a threat to people actually getting to know eachother. Or of course, when my dad tried to translate Egyptian phrases into English except the exact translation didn’t sound quite right. For example, instead of saying that someone shouldn’t talk rubbish, my Dad said, in his best, words-of-wisdom voice, “Shit. It should never come from the mouth” Steve laughed so hard at this while my dad looked utterly confused as to why this was so funny but pleased he had amused him so. It's now a staple phrase in our house.

My parents have come to love Steve. He is like the token white boy and the only person in our extended family with blue, sparkling eyes. They see those traits that also can come with being the classic Australian - patient, easygoing and straightforward.

The story as to how we got married is a big one. But in the end what came to eventuate was a wedding well enjoyed by all with a mixture of faiths, cultures and partying. There was waltzing and belly-dancing, Arabic and English, black and white.

God bless multiculturalism for making our lives a hell of a lot more interesting and amusing and reminding us that shit should NEVER come from the mouth.

I would love it if you shared, commented or liked.