"About 100 Hindus will go to Warrnambool," Mr Vemula said. "We will have lots of food." He said the train to Warrnambool would become a sea of colour with many women in traditional Indian dress. "We all get the train and some sing and dance on the train," he said. In previous years, an eighth carriage has had to be added to the Melbourne to Warrnambool train to accommodate the number of daytrippers on the free Christmas Day service.

Other Hindus also head to Lake Pertobe at Warrnambool, for more feasting, singing and dancing. "We will also have a VB," Mr Vemula said. The Hindus are not alone. Many Muslims and Buddhists also celebrate Christmas without compromising their own faith, if only seizing the public holiday to spend time with family and friends. Some non-Christian religions explictly honour Jesus. Many Hindus accept Jesus as divine, as part of their wider Hindu pantheon, while for Muslims, he is one of the five holiest prophets. Yet Muslim television presenter, commentator and academic Waleed Aly recalls spending many Christmases as a child thoroughly bored.

"The shops are closed, TV programming is possibly the worst that it is this time of year, and all your friends have got stuff to do with their families," he said. "I always saw Christmas Day as the day before the Boxing Day Test." One year, Aly held a "non-Christmas" party with his friends, "because we just had nothing else to do", although he admits the picnic in the park would have looked a lot like a Christmas barbecue. Christmas Day changed vastly for Aly when he met his wife of 13 years, a Muslim convert whose family is Christian. "So my children are receiving Christmas presents this year," he said. "I actually think I'm getting presents too."

Aly will join his in-laws for a Christmas lunch, but will savour the seafood on offer rather than the ham. Michael Wells and his wife and children will also celebrate Christmas, despite being Buddhist. Mr Wells was Christian before marrying his Malaysian Buddhist wife. "It's pretty hard to ignore Christmas when you have children," he said, referring to his young son and daughter. "Yes, we have a Christmas tree . . . and when the kids were smaller Father Christmas definitely had to come . . .

"But there's a certain joyous energy about Christmas that fits nicely with the Buddhist notion of Dana." Dana - the practice of giving - is one of the essential preliminary steps of Buddhist practice. "I also like Christmas pudding," Mr Wells said. Sudaya, a practicing Buddhist from Thornbury, said she would also join her Christian family for Christmas lunch. "I'm just happy to go along and be part of the family celebration," she said.

Monique Gaspar from the Jewish Ark Centre in Hawthorn East said her family would also get together on Christmas Day. This year, Christmas will fall only two days after the end of the Jewish celebration Hanukkah, which commemorates the victory of the Jews over the Greek-Syrians in 165 BCE and the subsequent liberation of the Temple of Jerusalem. "Even though we don't celebrate Christmas, we just get together anyway, because everything is closed. "And when Hanukkah falls around Christmas, as it has this year, a lot of people have 'Chrismakkah' where they combine the two. We don't necessarily celebrate Christmas, but we get together . . . and have a traditional Jewish lunch of bagels with brisket, hummus and pickled vegetables; sometimes we will have a turkey, for fun." Sarah Asher, from St Kilda East, said many Jews also seized the opportunity to visit Melbourne Zoo on Christmas Day, while the crowds were at bay.

She said her family usually spent the week of Christmas camping at Wilsons Promontory National Park in the state's far south-east. "There's not many people there, so you don't have to compete for a campsite or the facilities," she said.