Today felt like Christmas had properly arrived in Brisbane.
We started the morning in full sugar-fuelled chaos, building a gingerbread house at the kitchen bench. Georgia took charge of the icing bag like she’d been on Bake Off, carefully piping along the roof tiles and sticking on lollies one by one. Dotty mostly focused on quality control… which meant trying to eat the decorations faster than we could get them on the house. By the time we were done there was icing on the counter, crumbs on the floor and one very proud gingerbread cottage sitting in the middle of it all.
In the late afternoon we swapped royal icing for real carols and headed over to the racecourse near Ascot for an evening Christmas event. The lawn slowly filled with blankets, prams and families in their best “nice top and shorts” combo while a warm breeze drifted across the track. The organisers handed out songbooks, including an “Aussie Jingle Bells” with lyrics about rusty Holden utes, thongs and barbies – the perfect reminder that Christmas down under comes with dust and sunshine, not snow.
As the sun went down the stage lights kicked in and the kids migrated straight to the front. Georgia joined the pack of children dancing near the choir, completely absorbed in the music, while Dotty bounced between us and the edge of the action, doing her own little shimmy. Performers in sparkly costumes spun LED hoops that left neon trails in the dark and the whole thing had that relaxed, community-fair feel: queues for food trucks, toddlers up past bedtime, parents quietly rationing hot chips.
On the way home we took a quick detour to see one of the local Christmas light houses. The place was absolutely covered: every balcony, bush and fence wrapped in flashing lights, inflatable Santas and glowing animals. The girls stood in the garden staring up at it all, bubbles floating through the air, and for a few minutes it felt like we were inside our own Aussie snow globe – only the “snow” was 25 degrees and smelled faintly of sunscreen.
It wasn’t a big sightseeing day, just gingerbread, carols and fairy lights, but it was exactly what we needed: a little pocket of Christmas magic in the middle of our travels.