Best wishes to you all for Christmas season and for a prosperous and healthy 2012. The blog will close for around ten days. The photo shows the superb Christmas light show using St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney as a backdrop.
To help celebrate Christmas, I have included the words of an Australian version of Jingle Bells sung to the familiar tune, by successful Irish-born Australia singer and songwriter, Colin Buchanan.
It highlights the strange contrast of Christmas being associated with snow and wintry weather while falling in the middle of the Australian summer. Below the song are the explanations of a handful of Australian words that you may not be familiar with (marked with an asterisk).
Aussie Jingle Bells
Dashing through the bush,
in a rusty Holden(*) Ute (*),
Kicking up the dust,
esky(*) in the boot,
Kelpie(*) by my side,
singing Christmas songs,
It's Summer time and I am in
my singlet, shorts and thongs(*)
Oh! Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,
Christmas in Australia on a scorching summers day, Hey!
Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas time is beaut!(*),
Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden Ute.
Engine's getting hot;
we dodge the kangaroos,
The swaggie(*) climbs aboard,
he is welcome too.
All the family's there,
sitting by the pool,
Christmas Day the Aussie way,
by the barbecue.
Oh! Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,
Christmas in Australia on a scorching summers day, Hey!
Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas time is beaut!,
Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden Ute.
Come the afternoon,
Grandpa has a doze,
The kids and Uncle Bruce,
are swimming in their clothes.
The time comes 'round to go,
we take the family snap,
Pack the car and all shoot through,
before the washing up.
Oh! Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,
Christmas in Australia on a scorching summers day, Hey!
Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas time is beaut!,
Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden Ute.
Glossary
Holden: Australian brand of General Motors
ute: utility vehicle
esky: portable plastic cooler box (brand name derived from shortening eskimo)
kelpie: Australian breed of sheep dog
thongs: open footwear sometimes called flip-flops (or jandles in New Zealand!!)
beaut: slang for very good
swaggie: slang for swagman, a transient rural worker (farmhand, shearer, miner or other) who carried everything in a bedroll moving from place to place (or swag)
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Aussie Jingle Bells and Merry Christmas
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14 comments:
Merry Christmas Mark! Enjoy your time off and the holidays. Loved the Aussie version of Jingle Bells!
Wishing you a very happy Christmas and New Year Mark, although the idea of sitting by the pool on Christmas day sounds enticing, the idea of frosty days and cosy log fires is embedded in my thoughts as the ideal Christmas
Stunning pic but for 10 days its a long period. By the way Happy New Year in advance to everyone.
Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday, placing it like a picture in a frame or a gem in its setting, so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear. Travel does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of, giving to it the sharp contour and meaning of art.
We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.
Happy new years to you as well. Richard from the Amish community of Lebanon,pa
Smart move to close the blog for a bit. I applaud you.
As for the Aussie Jingle Bells, well let's just say I still prefer our English one!
@barbara: Belated best wishes to you too for Xmas and for 2012.
@heather: Speaking to travellers in Asutralia from Europe and North America, they also struggle with their experiences of "cosy log fires" and the Australian summer heat and BBQs and beaches.
@pooja: Best wishes for 2012. We all need a bit of a break from blogging and I take my break at Christmas.
@amish stories: Happy new year to you and your community Richard. I wasn't even aware of an Amish community in Lebanon.
@will - gapdaemon: I think I probably prefre the traditional version as well though the words are well constructed in the Aussie version.
This is really funny! I love these humorous reworkings of traditional songs! We made up our own version when we spent Christmas in Melbourne a few years ago, but I can't remember the words anymore...
@melbourne activities: Shame you can't post your reworked words. Buchanan did a great job with these lyrics.
these humorous reworkings of traditional songs create an exciting fun in the new year !! happy new year to all the people around the world
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