Santa and Climate Change

It’s that time of year again. Santa straps on his red jump suit and sets out on his quest to deliver toys to kids around the world in a single night. His preferred mode of transportation: a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer. It’s no wonder that, as children, we had some difficult questions for our parents to answer. Questions such as, how does Santa accomplish all of his deliveries in one night? Parents could put a child’s conscious to rest by explaining the concepts of time zones, the speed of his sleigh or by simply dismissing the phenomena as something magical. However, at some point, we forget about Santa, stop asking questions and become too preoccupied with what has been left in our stocking or under the tree. Well, I refuse to forget. I still have questions!

Christmas 2010 - Perth, Australia.

For instance, how does Santa cope with all of the world’s different climates, especially in an era of over publicized climate change? In Canada, people are being rescued by military personnel due to snow storms. In England, snow has paralysed the country. And, in Australia, I start to sweat after typing the word the. Every person in Western Australia has been asked to reduce their water consumption by 60 litres per day, whereas the East Coast is under feet of water from recent flooding. I don’t know how the jolly fellow does it? Maybe it just is magical.

Christmas 2010 will certainly be different for Steph and I. Despite the above zero temperatures, we are a long way from family and friends. Fortunately, I happen to have a great uncle (Mike) and aunt (Anne) that reside in Perth. Steph and I had the privilege of meeting them a couple of weeks before Christmas. We met at a nearby pub (J.B. O’Reillys) and chatted over a couple of pints. From what we gathered, Mike emigrated from England and is a retired pilot of cargo ships. Anne is native to Australia and teaches English as a second language. Her students are mainly professionals from other regions of the world (mainly Asia, India and the Middle East) who struggle with the Australian interpretation of the English language (as if English wasn't already difficult enough to learn!). To help us understand, she felt it necessary to give us a few examples of common Australian phrases that foreigners can’t quite grasp, expecting us to give her the correct ‘translation’ in return. Each phrase was followed by silence and blank stares. After Anne gave the correct response, Steph and I tried to recover with nervous laughter and the excuse that we could have figure it out given some sort of context. It’s kind of ironic that we thought we were making it easier on ourselves by travelling to an English speaking country.

As our first meeting came to a close, we were invited to spend Christmas dinner with them and their family. They have two children and three grandchildren. They also have a pool and requested that we bring our swim wear, so we could play with the grand kids in the pool. We are looking forward to our first Christmas pool party!

We will be thinking of all of you back home, and wish you all a very merry Christmas and a safe holiday season!