Trees: much, much smaller here. Not nearly as big a deal. Virtually all fake.
Poinsettias: sold. You can find them and a handful of people seem to realize they're Christmas-y, but they're not exceptionally prevalent.
Pomegranates: haven't seen any. Not sure if you can get them or not.
Holly: haven't seen any.
Wreaths: haven't seen any.
Mistletoe: haven't seen any. Assume people would know what to do with it, if possibly only from the movies.
Friday, December 23, 2011
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The poinsettia is connected with a traditional Christmas story from Mexico, as it is native to that region of the world, so maybe since the US is closer to Mexico than Australia is, it is more prevalent here. (We probably have more people of Mexican descent here than you do there, too.)
Fake trees drop less leaves [especially as lots of people are somewhere else for Christmas...this time we were in Dunedin, NZ :-) ]
Poinsettias - flower in winter - they need long dark nights (at least 5 in succession) followed by bright sunny days in order to flower and for the surrounding leaf bracts to turn red (or any other colour; my parents have a red one and a white one). They also are grown in warmer climates - north of Sydney - that typically have dry sunny, winters. If you see any in flower here at Christmas, they have been kept in a dark room at night to induce flowering.
Pomegranates - an autumn fruit; in season from March to May. To find any here at this time of year, you'd have to import them.
Holly - imported, noxious weed; flowers and sets seed in autumn - eradicate it!
We have native mistletoe (something like 90 species, 71 of which are only found here) - it's generally high up in branches - berries are good for certain native animals, not good for humans - potential poisoning problem especially if consumed by small people (children) - probably best to leave it in the wild. And since most of our trees are evergreen anyway, the significance of mistletoe being evergreen has little relevance to the Australian psyche.
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