Australians celebrate Christmas in the summer, which is all very well but doesn't leave much cheeriness for the long dark winter. At least that's what I always thought. Then, the other day I was browsing an obscure corner of the internet and found a website dedicated to revealing the Truth About Things. Unbeknownst to the rest of the world, Australians have been having a sneaky midwinter festival called Fimblemas.
Fimblemas cards and gifts can only be made, they can never be bought. (One reason for this was so that grumbly types could never say 'Chuh! Fimblemas! That was just dreamt up by some card company').
On the first day of Fimblemas, people start to make their gifts. On the seventh day of Fimblemas, all the gifts are left out, to be collected in the dead of night by Mother Fimblemas. She leaves hand-written receipts for all the gifts, and these are kept by Australian children in their Fimblemas receipt-books.
During the next week Mother Fimblemas and her helpers sort through all the gifts so they are ready for delivery on the fourteenth of Fimblemas.
Mother Fimblemas lives, of course, at the South Pole. Her carriage is drawn by magical penguins, who can fly. She is kept warm throughout the freezing winter flights by her voluminous cloak and by the fact that a wombat is curled up on her head, hibernating.
Do you know anything about Fimblemas? For example, when IS Fimblemas? (The website didn't say, and it has since gone off-line - purportedly for not paying its hosting bills, but probably for revealing the Truth About Things). Do you know any Fimblemas customs? Fimblemas songs? Fimblemas food? Fimblemas games? Fimblemas decorations?
It is astonishing to think that Australians have kept this a secret for so long. And yet, thinking about that website, with its neon-green type and extensive collection of lizard-people photos, I can't help but think it must be true.
