Reunited With My Family in Australia For Christmas After Nearly 4 Long Years

I went back to Australia for 2022 Christmas and New Year’s! It was amazing to be reunited with my family and spend some quality time together. As a bonus, the seasons are opposite, so I escaped the cold winter here and got to enjoy some much-needed summer heat and sunshine.

View from inside a plane of New Chitose Airport in winter. Snow covers the ground and the sky is a brilliant blue. The shadow of a wing can be seen and a cargo buggy.

The view from a plane of Australia in summer. The fields below are yellow from the dry grass with green borders made by the trees. The sky is clear and blue.

The Countryside in Victoria, Australia

I arrived a week before Christmas, so my first destination was Hamilton where my cousins live. This truly ended up being a cousin visit, as my other cousins from Benalla joined me alongside my grandparents.

Josey Annaleise takes a selfie in the car with her grandmother and cousin smiling from the backseat.

A small christmas tree illuminates a dark room in green and blue colours. Below is a big stack of gifts.

Yellow and black diamond road sign with a kangaroo on it warns that kangaroos may cross the road in the next 5km.

Some of the highlights included visiting my cousin’s farm and seeing two of the local waterfalls, which were extra powerful due to recent flooding.

Wannon Falls in Hamilton Australia. Water cascades off a ledge into the river below.

A large gum tree stands proudly on a property in Australia.

Nigretta Falls, a large waterfall in Hamilton, Australia.

Farmland in Hamilton, Victoria, Australia. There are rolling green hills, a blue sky with wispy clouds and cows dot the hillside.

An assortment of different types of cows walk away from beneath a tree. A calf can be seen following its mother

They have so many pets as well! They have three dogs, two cats, two horses and a bunch of sheep. Bonus animal sightings included the local magpies and one mischievous mouse. My grandmother’s nickname is Mouse, so when my grandfather asked if I’d seen the mouse in the bathroom, I thought he was asking if I’d seen my grandmother. However, it turns out there was an actual real mouse, which had been trapped in the window so it couldn’t escape into the house.

Chestnut brown horse head is visible behind a fence.

A bernese mountain dog receives a pat. The dog looks very happy.

A small mouse is trapped between the window and fly screen in Australia.

Truth be told, my cousin gave the mouse to the cat. But the normally adept hunter decided it was not interested in this one, and the mouse made a run for its life. Much to our amusement, it later reappeared in the lounge room, in clear view of the cat. The cat took one look at it and couldn’t give a care in the world. I’m fairly certain the lucky mouse earned its freedom and its life!

My Hometown Benalla

After two nights spent in Hamilton, we made the drive out to my hometown Benalla. On the way there, we stopped for lunch at a bakery and I finally ate a delicious meat pie. I still dream about that pie even now.

The grampians (a mountains range in Victoria, Australia) visible from the road.

It was very nostalgic to be back at my grandparent’s house and I enjoyed seeing what had changed and what remained the same. Their garden has some really beautiful trees and flowers now. Being a few days out from Christmas, we went around the town to look at some of the beautiful Christmas lights people had put up.

A long stalk has bright red pink flowers with a yellow center on it.

A house is decorated with christmas multi-coloured christmas lights.

One thing I really wanted to see whilst in the area is something known as Silo Art. As a way to promote tourism and bring people out into small countryside towns, artists have transformed bland boring silos with artwork. There were too many to see in one go, but I got to admire the art in Goorambat, Devenish and Tungamah. They were amazing to see and I’ll definitely be trying to see the others in the future!

The silo art at Devenish Victoria Australia displays soldiers and nurses in uniform.

Christmas in Melbourne

On Christmas Eve, it was time for me to make my way back to Melbourne and be reunited with my parents and youngest brother, who had made their way down from Brisbane. I took the Vline train to the city and just when I thought I had nearly arrived at my destination, the train randomly stopped in the middle of nowhere. Fifteen minutes later they finally announced the reason for our unexpected stop and five minutes later after waiting for the other train to pass, at last, I arrived! It made me miss the trains in Japan a lot.

The inside of a Vline train in Victoria Australia. The seats are purple and orange with yellow handles on the side.

It was so good to see my family again! Many hugs were given and received, including a group hug! My youngest brother Alaric has grown so much since I last saw him, he’s now up to my chin and I’m fairly certain 2023 is the year I will become the shortest member of my family!

After dinner, Alaric and I headed into the city to see the famous Myer Christmas Windows and the Town Hall projections. Whilst waiting in line to see the windows, I started to play Shiritori with my brother in English. Shiritori is a Japanese word game where you have to say a word that begins with the last letter of the word said previously. My brother enjoyed the game so much, he forgot about the windows completely!

Disney Myer Christmas Window 2022. This window shows a magical castle with fireworks behind it.

Melbourne Town Hall displays a Christmas light show projection at twilight. The bow says 1 day until Christmas.

It was a really lovely night out and it’s great he’s now old enough for me to steal away for fun events!

A Christmas Day Like No Other

The true Christmas Magic happens at my Nan and Pop’s house. My Nan loves Christmas so much, she decorates her house from top to bottom with decorations. A Christmas tree in every room and every free space is host to a plethora of snow globes, figures and anything Christmas! It’s a little bit intense but in the best of ways!

Before the feast even began, I made the mistake of trying some of the chocolates set out. Maltesars and Picnic bars. They were so good and I hadn’t had chocolate like that in ages, so I struggled to stop eating them. Then lunch was set out and the feast began! There were so many delicious foods: roast vegetables, chicken, turkey, pork, cheesy cauliflower bake and a giant green salad!

Christmas Lunch in Australia. A table is full of an assortment of foods as people fill their plate. There are roast vegetables, roast meats and salad.

The table is full of christmas dessert. In the center is a pavlova laden with cream and fruit. There are two pudding and large plate of summer fruits.

Lunch by itself is amazing, but to top it off, there is dessert. The most exciting moment for me by far, as my Nan makes my favourite dessert, pavlova. I missed pavlova so much in Japan that I even attempted to make it a few times. But for such a seemingly easy dessert to make, it can be very fickle and I failed more often than I succeeded. It is by far the most popular dessert on the table as well. I realised as I was finishing my first slice, that there might not be a second. But I got super lucky though and another family member decided they didn’t want theirs, so I scored my second slice! I don’t have the words to describe how delicious it was other than to say, it was worth waiting years for.

Australian Pavlova at Christmas. The white meringue base is covered with cream and strawberries, kiwi fruit, berries and passionfruit.

Boxing Day and Kangaroos

The day after Christmas, my family and grandparents all headed to my brother’s place. He lives right on the edge of suburbia and the countryside, which means he gets to see some pretty cool animals. Native Australian birds such as cockatoos frequently visit his balcony. And just a five-minute walk down the road leads you to a mob of kangaroos!

A white cockatoo with a yellow raised crest sits on a balcony ledge with its wings outstretched and seed at its feet. Behind it is Australian bushland.

Josey Annaleise stands next to her brother Joel in a grassy area. It is a nice summer day and they both look happy posing for the photo.

Sunset from Upper Beaconsfield on 2022 Boxing Day. There are eucalyptus trees in front and behind them an orange sun can be seen sinking below the horizon.

A mob of kangaroos gathers in green grassland.

Off to Sydney

2 brothers met, 4 brothers to meet! I headed to Sydney with my youngest brother in tow to see my family there! My Sydney family lives up on a mountain, near the Blue Mountains. I’ll tell you more about my time in Sydney for New Year’s in part 2! In the meantime, you can read about my first trip to Japan!