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Christmas songs in the southern hemisphere


saraha
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To those whose Christmas comes in the summer:

After a day of Christmas shopping and hearing over and over again White Christmas and Winter Wonderland, my kids were curious about the kinds of songs (besides hymns) people sing/listen to during the Christmas season in the southern hemisphere.  We would love some you tube links to watch, especially if the songs are in English or have English subtitles.

Thanks!

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The same songs..... and we have snow globes and winter themes displays... 

 

Yeah, it doesn't make much sense to me either lol.

 

We did have 6 white boomers, but since the songwriter has now been charged as a pedophile that has kinda disappeared from rotation now.

 

Aussie jingle bells is great, but you'll have trouble 'translating' the slang :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrPdvh0HRhc

 

Generally though, we just hear the same stuff you do. Maybe with a bit more focus on songs like 'all i want for christmas is you' which doesn't mention snow, but that's debatable. We just accept christmas is this crazy tradition where we all melt while singing about how cold it is in the snow (which many of us have never seen).

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As mentioned we mostly listen to northern hemisphere songs about snow in Australia.

 

There are a couple of Australian Christmas songs I really like though.

 

Tim Minchin's White Wine in the Sun

Paul Kelly's How to Make Gravy.

 

I don't think either of them get a lot of airplay, but they are reasonably well known. Both can be found on YouTube.

 

They are not your typical Christmas songs so maybe listen to them without your kids first, some religious folk find the Minchin one objectionable and the Paul Kelly one is about a father in prison over Christmas.

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We are in South America (Colombia) but we are in the Northern Hemisphere. Just over 3 degrees North of the Equator, where our home is. The songs here are the same that I remember from the USA, but usually, they are in Spanish.

 

We live in a Tropical Valley (Mean temp. is approx. 76 F.) so there is no Snow here, but there is a big snowman in front of the office of our Homeowners Association at this time of the year.

 

In Colombia, it is illegal to cut live trees to be used as Christmas Trees, so everyone uses an Artificial Tree.  Growing Live Christmas Trees is an industry in the USA.

 

So, there are some differences, but primarily it is the same holiday, without the Snow/Ice.

 

 

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Florida doesn't get a white Christmas ever (and sometimes it isn't even chilly) but we sing about it anyhow!  Or at least I do and so does the radio.   :)

 

Yep. We rarely even get a cold day for Christmas, but if we want seasonal songs we have to put up with the songs that assume everyone lives in the same climate. This year's Christmas forecast for my city is a high of 83F and a low of 72 on Christmas Eve. That's a bit high, since we're usually in the 70's for our high, but not completely unusual. 

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I live in the southeastern area of the US. I've only had 1 white Christmas in 45 years and it was about a 1/2 in covering the grass.  Its a very rare thing for us to get any snow and even more rare to get enough snow that you could make a snowman.

 

. This whole month the temperature have been in the 70's  I wore shorts and sandals to a Christmas party LOL.

 

We sing White Christmas and Winter wonderland then laugh and then we are thankful that we don't have 5 layers of clothes own.  I like my warm temp.  We average a winter temp 45-50 daytime so its not real cold.  We only get very few below freezing days. 

 

So I'm enjoying the not so winter wonderland.  We are suppose to actually get some winter temperature this weekend.  I may get to wear my boots. 

 

We have crazy weather a week of heat, a week of cold, a few days of freezing.  We don't have constant seasonal temp changes. They change with the jet stream sometimes it dips low from the northern portion of the US  and sends us some cold  and then we get a current from southwest of us and get some heat from mexico .  Weather is really fascinating.

 

 

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Growing up in Hawaii, we sang all the same songs mainlanders do along with large doses of Mele Kalikimaka. We even sang of White Christmases and Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire, though Christmas was typically in the low 70's with "the sun to shine by day and all the stars at night." :p

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Florida doesn't get a white Christmas ever (and sometimes it isn't even chilly) but we sing about it anyhow!  Or at least I do and so does the radio.   :)

 

 

Yep. We rarely even get a cold day for Christmas, but if we want seasonal songs we have to put up with the songs that assume everyone lives in the same climate. This year's Christmas forecast for my city is a high of 83F and a low of 72 on Christmas Eve. That's a bit high, since we're usually in the 70's for our high, but not completely unusual. 

 

Another Floridian here.   My kids have never seen snow, and it hasn't snowed here since January 1977 (when I was 4, so I don't even remember it).   This year our forecast calls for Christmas day to be 86 degrees, so my kids will probably jump in the pool after the Christmas festivities are finished.

 

We wear "Christmas sweater t-shirts" with our shorts and flip flops instead of actual Christmas sweaters.    DH & I went to a Christmas party last weekend that was Caribbean themed.   There were lots of long, sleeveless, flowered dresses on the women, and the men wore shorts.    It was great!

Edited by SebastianCat2
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Another Floridian here.   My kids have never seen snow, and it hasn't snowed here since January 1977

 

You must be in South Florida or somewhere on the west coast. Here in East Central Florida it's snowed 2 (or maybe 3) more times since then. But 1977 is the only time it snowed in Miami.

 

(when I was 4, so I don't even remember it).

 

Four???!!!  I'm so old.  :lol:

 

I was in college at Florida State. People started knocking on doors at my apartment complex about 2AM shouting, "Wake up everyone! It's snowing in Florida!" Tallahassee public schools were closed that day, but FSU didn't cancel classes. No one wanted to go, but the snow melted by early morning anyway, so it's not like we could have stayed home and played in it.

 

 

 

We wear "Christmas sweater t-shirts" with our shorts and flip flops instead of actual Christmas sweaters.    DH & I went to a Christmas party last weekend that was Caribbean themed.   There were lots of long, sleeveless, flowered dresses on the women, and the men wore shorts.    It was great!

 

I'm so excited that the cold spell is coming this weekend. I'm going to a Christmas party Saturday night and I get to wear a sweater! But yeah, mostly it's shorts(or capri pants) and flip flops/sandals with an occasional long sleeve shirt. I do have a Christmas tee shirt, which gets worn more years than any Christmas sweater or sweatshirt I've ever owned.

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I'm from Houston so I have pictures of me in a tank top decorating Christmas cookies. The year we got a big trampoline, my dad set it up and we were jumping on it that afternoon. When my kids got a trampoline, we didn't set it up for a few months. It was too cold to bother. :) There's something to be said for a nice warm winter.

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I grew up on the Equator, so we didn't have cold Christmas's, but we were also Americans living overseas, so we just listened to the same songs there that we do here.

 

When I lived in LA, we were often in shorts on Christmas.

 

This year may be the same in North Carolina!

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Here's one we love here in NZ

 

 

http://folksong.org.nz/nzchristmas/christmas_in_new_zealand.html

 

My dc have only experienced a white Christmas once when we spent the holidays with my family in Vermont.  For dh & our dc Christmas means dinner with extended family on Christmas day & going to the beach on Boxing Day.  It never feel like Christmas to me, but I am grateful that I never had to deal with snowsuits, etc when the kids were little.  

Edited by Deb in NZ
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