Yes, I know just how you feel. I only have my husband here. Although I do have a handful of Aussie friends its just not the same as they dont understand. I never talk to them about how i feel.

Have u considered that maybe it is u that feels different and not them? Think about it - can you think of any reason you have upset them? I am sure you have only been helpful and thankful and not expected things to be given free without some offer of compromise or an attempt to repay your way. As I said in a previous post I doubt family would expect you to pay your way until you got on your feet in the new country but it is all in the appreciation rather than the act itself.

Perhaps you should talk to your sisters if you think they are treating you oddly. Would that not be better than suffering through truckload of alcohol? You may find that it is the stresses of life, living and time of year that is at hand and nothing about you at all. Look outside of youself and the answer may come.

I am not a professional but check it out and let it be gone rather then let your time here be ruined buy self doubt and imposing problems.

well our xmas was in UAE not OZ...and it was fab ....dinner with lots of friends at the golf club..then in the evening we went to freinds was loads there and we had an outdoor party complete with a huge wood burner and kids toasted mallows and chestnuts and sang and it was truly a great day ......boxing day was at mine and there was 50 plus there complete with pinuattas ,kareoke,loads of food ,etc and a fantastic 2 days .....yes it would have been complete had my grandson been there but alas next year already booked their tickets xxxxxx....HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL XXXXXXXXXX

Red Hot Summer, You too are probably right. I am sure that i havent shown enough appreciation for all that she has done for me. I have tried but maybe she doesnt feel that i have and is upset with me for what she thinks is freeloading. We stayed for 2 weeks when we arrived and then for another week a couple of weeks ago and bough nearly all our own food and we have said thankyou and tried to stay out of their way as much as possible.
I have also tried to tidy up but whenever i do i am told to leave it!
Also when my oz sister came to England in July, we gave up our room for a month and had to go and live with my partners parents for nearly 3 weeks of that time which was hell but we gladly did it. I know that we all can point the finger and say she didnt do that and vice versa but all i want is to be able to hang out with my sisters and have fun.
My partners has lived with me and my uk sister for 3.5 years and even he is saying that she is acting odd.
Oh well, i dont know what else to do. I have asked them out tomorrow and maybe it will be nice. I hope so.

Dear Brenda, You are right it was a horrible thing to say. I didnt mean to bag my sisters to all on BE. I have only been here a few weeks and am really feeling the strain at the moment. My partner and i spent alot of christmas day sobbing!
I just want to feel close to them. Im sure when you were first here, you probably needed alot of emotional support and if you had someone close to you, you would try to turn to them.
I could give examples of stuff that they have said or done and maybe none of it was meant in a hurtful way but right now i am a bit raw. Im sure you can relate having left all your family to come to oz yourself.
Dont get me wrong, i love my sisters dearly and would LOVE to be able to spend some quality time with them but it doesnt seem to be working out like that. I have asked them out tomorrow so maybe we WILL manage some quality time before my UK sister goes home.
I wish that i could just jump straight from december 23rd to january 3rd and miss out this whole christmas/new year berevement stuff!
Happy new year to you Brenda.
Sidneee
PS Brenda Williams was a Motown star. Are you named after her?

I can relate to this. I had the worst Christmas (been here 5 years) but only in the sense that I came face to face with my own expectation with what Christmas is supposed to be like versus the reality of what it IS like here in Australia.
I got the half hour lip service from my son in a short visit by him and his girlfriend. I knew it was lip service but hoped it might have been genuine. However my feelings about the girlfriend and her family have been correct all along. They are extremely selfish and insist on coming first in every way so I got half an hour while they got the rest of Christmas sharing together as a family.

My daughter, who is in the UK, wrote me the most angry, hurtful, spiteful email two days before Christmas pointing out all my failings and telling what a crap mother I've always been. She's angry because I'm still here trying to get home and thinks I'm living the life of Riley. Her email ruined my Christmas and frankly I'm sick of being on the receiving end of her anger (she's 27 next month), just because she isn't coming first. I didn't receive a card or any gesture of good will from her at all and it's made me upset because I made Christmas so lovely for my kids all their lives. Hand made quilts, gingerbread men, christmas decorations, far too many presents probably but above all, I made Christmas a warm and special time for them both. I'm very hurt by their selfishness but I honestly believe it's their generation. They've become life's takers and that this credit crunch is going to be the big boot sorting them out.

Anyway, 3 more months and hopefully I'll be home starting life again. Thank Christ Christmas is over.

Sidneee, I am sorry if I seemed blunt, reading your answer to me made me realise I was. Sorry. I was in a similar situation about 2 years ago. I came over to Oz and originally moved to the Gold Coast and stayed with my sister, who I had not seen for about 4 years. She told me save my pennies and just help around the house and see her kids off to school in return for not paying anything but after I left I didn't hear from her. Turns out she resented me for not offering to help with $$, even after she said not to worry. Was a sad time and a even to this day there is a small wall we can't seem to get past. I guess that why I am so much for ask! ask! ask! and offer! and etc etc.... I hope you work out whatever it is and you don't have to go through what I do to this day. Family is first, so best of luck.

I've got it sussed now, this was the best Christmas in five years. Worked all night all week, slept all day.
On the brief moments that I came up for air I have been lectured by the MiL for my extravagance - only using teabags once, and as for my wasteful habit of buying bathmats instead of putting a towel on the floor......well, I'm so evil I can cope with the odd few minutes though, before bolting out the door to work again. No fights, no arguing, plkenty of UK sitcoms on TV and not had to fight anyone for access to them.......
All I need now is to get hold of the rosters for next year and see if I can volunteer to do the same shifts again

i suppose a "good" christmas, is what you remembered and enjoyed from your childhood...i have just spent the last christmas for me, in london, and all i seemed to see were a lot of materialistic people buzzing around with no regard for any one else, spending money they probably shouldn't have!
i had some chestnuts at the market...horrible shrivelled up things...i think they may have been rotten, so not a nice first chestnut experience!!
but my christmas wasn't like nigella's, with all the fancy decorations and trimmings .....and i didn't care....i spent the day with precious friends, and avoided a turkey, as i prefer animals alive rather than dead

but christmas is no more "genuine" in england than in australia!!!
the british can't claim christmas as theirs!
just because people in a different climate celebrate christmas in a way more fitting for their conditions doesn't make it wrong... its just different than what you were used to...and i know that you can still have turkey and all the trimmings at oz christmases, as we did growing up there....even mince pies...! and elderley people in oz would appreciate a plate of mince pies to remind them they're not forgotten about too....
it really is ,as someone else said what you make of it....and this christmas or others before, probably disappointed because your heart was somewhere else, as mine also was this year....
i imagine that nice christmas someone was descibing before in a little village setting somewhere along way from london...i never had a christmas like that here....it was all just shops using "christmas spirit" to try and pump money out of you!

at the end of the day though, christmas is not actually about trees and trimmings and turkeys....its supposed to be about celebrating the birth of christ,and you can do that where ever you are! (even if you would rather be somewhere else!)

Very much like Brisbane then.

unfortunately ,i think the whole world is going this way!

materialistic and self focused!

maybe the credit crunch will help sort this end of things out, and maybe people will do a bit more of the thoughtful homebaking etc as a gift for people instead of the mindless junk everyone scrambles to buy these days...!!

but rest assured...mean spiritedness abounds in both cultures at christmas unfortunately....one of my most memorable christmas food buying experiences was on the gold coast 10 years ago, in coles .
having crouched down to get a packet off the very bottom shelf, i looked up to see a very determined women charging at me from a distance with her shopping trolley and a very focused, and grumpy look on het face- at ME!!!
i was sure she was going to stop, but apparently i was in her way, and she bowled me over, and sent me flying across the aisle and went on her merry way!!!:curse:
obviously i had no right to be there, and was offered no apology, and i went home thinking "merry christmas to you too"!!!
what is wrong with the world when people treat each other like that at a time when its supposed to be good will to men???

maybe its because i was a woman???

LOL, we will arrange for a cyclone or bush fire in your area next year, that should do it for you - get you well past NY too I should think!

At least I didnt have that problem with my MIL - with her it was more a problem of "who on earth are you?" and "I dont know what is going to become of me" (read into that "hint, hint, I would really like to go home with you and you could look after me instead of having to stay in this dreadful nursing home" - yeah right!)

I think I might put my hand up for a rostered shift next Christmas unless I can get myself home for the occasion - sounds like a good plan!

I don't know if it's because I live in a wealthy area but I have never seen greed, decadence and self indulgence in the UK on the scale I've seen it here. I think partly, Christmas has become an excuse to have a huge binge eating and drinking session but I also think that in some ways, the lifestyle of excesses here where I am is normal behaviour.

Not that long ago, we were invited to a party night at a friends English pub. He provided a generous free buffet, free live entertainment and all we had to do was turn up and pay for drinks. It was an incentive for him to draw in more customers and keep them returning. As we'd been to first party night and enjoyed it, we decided to go again. We got there about 7.30pm and thought it seemed quiet. We were the only ones there buying drinks.
The tables where the food was to be placed were set against a backdrop of terraced planters full of greenery so the idea was that people would file a queue, pick up a plate then proceed up in line along the front side of the tables.
Just as the food was being brought out at 8pm, a crowd of the locals arrived and honestly what happened next was totally unbelievable. On seeing the queue lining up at the front of the table, the women from the crowd shoved and pushed their way around the back of tables squeezing themselves between the food and the plants. With absolutely no decorum or manners whatsoever, they piled their plates full of food and were filling their mouths at the same time. By the time they'd finished, it looked like a plague of locusts had landed. There was not enough food for everyone who turned up thereafter despite the landlord gracing us all with generous helpings. He hadn't skimped on anything.

These women were mostly overweight, well off, well dressed locals so now whenever anyone makes a stab at how certain groups of society behave and relate their behaviour to the underclass or chavism, I honestly think they should come to the wealthier areas and see how some of locals behave because to use their own words, 'they can'.

In all my time of living in the UK, i have never seen such manners or greed as I have here on the Gold Coast.

Interesting that everyone thinks Oz Christmas is all about greed (and no this is not an Oz is great/UK is crap comment).
I can honestly say that the eating /drinking to excess is something all Western countries seem to do at Christmas. My many many christmases in London were all filled with drinking sessions throughout December.

Christmas is not the same here- of course it should be cold and dark- but it is the same on the commercialisation/shopping mentality scale.
All my (UK) family complained once again that "it doesn't feel like Christmas"- I guess because we are not all 8 years old and excited by Santa.

One thing I think Australia does well, is the emphasis on appeals at Christmas- and they are not the 'in-your-face' tin rattling outside every shop. We gave to K mart Wishing Tree, Smith family and a local one near my childcare- they seemed well organised and genuine. In UK, I only seem to be accosted by chuggers (charity 'muggers' who get a commission for signing you up to a direct debit) who will not take no for an answer.

I do miss my Christmases of childhood, when it always snowed, everyone was friendly to each other, and Christmas was about having a family gathering.... and of course childhood summers were always long and hot (even in Wales!)

This was my 3rd and last Christmas in OZ.

Thank god