Hi everyone, I just have a quick question.

is the Christmas in July thing a big deal in Australia? For example do people get involved in festivities and that sort of thing?

cheers!

Not much 'festivities' in the community.

Some pubs & restaurants promote it by having the roast dinner with trimmings, christmas crackers, santa visit maybe a band on etc.

It's not a big deal at all, in fact it's a non-event. As NJJ said it's a few pubs drumming up business.

"Christmas in July", in my experience, is an expression (sometimes wholehearted, sometimes ironic) that some Good Thing has happened unexpectedly, or at least at an unusual time of the year.

I've never heard of it as a festive occasion in its own right.

It's a well-known thing up in the Blue Mountains of NSW. Now called 'Yulefest' rather than Christmas in July.

Plenty of hotels and guest houses there offer special weekends with log fires, decorations, Christmas food, santa visits and the like.

Back in the day we used to have a big Expats Xmas in July on the Gold Coast. Football Match for the English vs the Celts, Santa with pressies, a disco, food, drink and loads of Expat gossip! That was back in the days when the Aus forum on here was huge and we usually got a couple of hundred people there throughout the day.

Never experienced it as an Aussie thing though.

It's pretty big around here in Stanthorpe. The coldest town in Queensland and loads of tourists head down here from Brissy in the winter. We have the Christmas Tree Farm in town and they are doing a roaring trade at the moment. There's a bloody great Christmas tree outside the post office and snowflakes and Christmas lights all over the place. It's very good for our economy.