These days in Australia it’s easy to forget that Christmas Day has its origins in a Christian tradition, and, well, not everybody in the country celebrates it.

(Getting in before the trolls: THIS IS NOT A WAR ON SAYING ‘MERRY CHRISTMAS'.)

So, given it’s a day where most of the country is getting spoilt by a fat man in a red suit and feasting on every kind of meat, how do you celebrate Christmas in Australia if you don’t celebrate Christmas?

Hack spoke to four people from different religious backgrounds about how their families mark the 25th of December.

GAB, aka Japanese Wallpaper: Jewish

Share Facebook

Twitter

Mail

Whatsapp

The person behind the beautiful sounds that is Japanese Wallpaper is 19 year-old Gab. As a Jewish kid at a Jewish school in Melbourne, he says Christmas has never been a significant day for him.

“It’s never been a party of my family’s year, and I went to a Jewish school so I never really felt like I was missing out on anything because my friends were in the same boat.”

“It falls pretty close to Hanukkah and it’s not thematically that similar but it’s a holiday in December that involves giving presents.”

Unlike Seth in the OC, Gab hasn’t adopted an interfaith Chrismukkah celebration of both Chrissie and the Jewish festival.

Share Facebook

Twitter

Mail

Whatsapp

Gab tells Hack his family will normally hit the beach on Christmas Day, as it’s usually a scorching Melbourne December day.

“We’d usually hang out with our grandparents and go to the beach because no one else is at the beach that day.”

SARAH: Muslim heritage

Since becoming a journalist, most of Sarah’s Christmases have been spent working so her colleagues can take the day off to celebrate.

“I've spent most of my working life taking one for the team and working on Christmas, writing Christmas shopping stories and inserting cliches in sad crime yarns.”

Sarah family’s has attempted a culinary fusion of traditional Christmas meats packed with spices.

“As a kid, we'd have a day off and sometimes my family would have picnics with fusion masala birds and curries and BBQ tikka while waiting for the Boxing Day Test and sales.”

Skip Twitter Tweet FireFox NVDA users - To access the following content, press 'M' to enter the iFrame. Desis are the biggest fans of xmas - only time we see white ppl get bling, religion & sales happening. All highly respected by brown ppl. — Sarah Malik (@sarahbmalik) December 20, 2016

“Other times we were just watching bad summer television - I have watched every biblical movie imaginable - and feeling resentful at the white kids in the movies getting presents and enjoying all the proper rituals and delicious bling that came with Christmas.”

Sarah reckons her idea of what Christmas celebrations are like mostly comes from Hollywood movies and English literature, where it’s a romanticised fantasy of snow and Hogwarts- like feasts.

“It was a double dislocation being brown and Australian - our Christmas was upside down to begin with - hot with seafood and then further bastardised with masalas.”

“If anyone would like to invite me over for movie Christmas with church, trees, bling, Santa (and handsome romantic comedy) lead I'd be very grateful. But I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist.”

Sarah says Christmas has a lot in common with the Muslim holiday Eid, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

“I’m assuming that if it's like Eid - tired women fed up with too much cooking, overeating, family drama and itchy clothes.”

KARAN: Sikh

Share Facebook

Twitter

Mail

Whatsapp

Karan loves Christmas.

To clarify: Karan loves Christmas because it’s the day before Boxing Day, and Karan loves cricket.

“Christmas Day is interpreted in my head as Boxing Day Eve, and the 26th of December is the most important day on the cricket calendar.”

Growing up in Darwin as a Sikh, Karan and his family didn’t celebrate Christmas but his mum would cook a feast for the family. Karan said this isn’t a big deal, though, because “she’s an Indian mother so you didn’t need an excuse to cook a feast on a holiday.”

Share Facebook

Twitter

Mail

Whatsapp

Now the family is older, Karan tells Hack everyone uses Christmas Day as a great chance to get cheap flights.

“Christmas is such a happy time of the year, with people spending time with families and exchanging expressions of love and togetherness, in today’s sociopolitical environment it’s so important.

“But yes, the jingles get really annoying when they start in August.”

SHALAILAH: Zoroastrian

Hack’s own Shalailah Medhora was born into the world’s oldest monotheistic (one god) religion, Zoroastrianism. You have to be born into the Zoro religion and can’t convert, making Shalailah a rare gem… but we already knew that.

The Medhora family gets onboard with Christmas celebrations, minus the religious parts.

“We still have a Christmas tree, we try to come together as a family, we still do presents, we’re really big on presents in our family.”

Share Facebook

Twitter

Mail

Whatsapp

When Shalailah and her brother were younger they used to get presents from Santa (although Shalailah’s journo skills developed early: she’d busted the case on Santa by age eight).

Most years they have a delicious Indian feast, although once Shalailah’s mum attempted roast meat with a spicy Indian twist.

“We’ve been getting more and more traditional in the way we celebrate Christmas. Dad loves traditions and pushed Mum to try a more traditional Christmas meal.”

“She tried to make turkey and bless her, it’s just not her forte.”