when I was a kid...

THERE IS SOMETHING very special about celebrating Christmas on the land. Who could forget those hot summer days made even hotter by a Christmas roast, and all the traditional trimmings?

Here, some well-known Australians reminisce about their country childhoods and share their holiday memories from festive food disasters and much-anticipated catch-ups with extended family to lazy Susans gone awry and the ubiquitous Christmas Day cricket match.

ANGELA WALES

Author of Barefoot in the Bindis: Memoir of a Bush Childhood

(Affirm Press, $29.99). Angela grew up in Walcha, in the Northern Tablelands of NSW.

“On Christmas Eve, we bumped across the paddock on the back of the truck as we went to pick out a suitable tree.”
Angela Wales,