For those of us who grew up in the Northern Hemisphere, 33°C heat and tropical birds screeching out your bedroom window at 6:30AM on Christmas Day can be a little discombobulating. 

If your brain can override these unnatural details, Christmas in Australia is pretty much like everywhere else in the western world.  The whole family gets together, presents are exchanged and shrimp are thrown on the barbie (that saying came about for a reason). 

Indeed, aside from the tank tops and sun block, Sydney does Christmas like nobody's business. 

Massive, joyous family gatherings, piles of mouthwatering food and perhaps a dip in the pool in lieu of the requisite material for a snowball fight.  Truly, when you come from a cold and snowy place, the holidays in Sydney are a surreal experience.  Despite evidence in the form of holiday songs piped over public places, raging, last minute sales trumpeted from every storefront and regular sightings of Santa, the build up to Christmas Day seems very surreal and wrong; like an elaborate practical joke that the adults decided to collectively play on all the kids in the city.  If you find yourself a visitor in Sydney during the holidays, you should be prepared for these odd sensations, but rest assured, you won't be at a loss for things to do.

If you want to dive headlong into Sydney's many offerings, you should proceed directly to Circular Quay, the nexus of central Sydney where you'll find a railway station, the Overseas Passenger Terminal, harbor walkways, restaurants, street performers, the Botanical Gardens, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the hub for all of the city's water transportation.  Though the nearby, conspicuous presence of the famed Sydney Opera House may tempt you to steer away from your objective, do not allow this to happen.  You'll get countless, vastly superior opportunities to photograph the Opera House from a departing ferry compared to the inadequate, limited angles available by approaching it from land. 

Sydney has a wonderfully robust water transportation system.  Ferries and the cute, toy-like harbor taxis crisscross Darling and Sydney Harbors, carving intersecting watery slashes as they convey locals and camera-toting travel writers alike to their respective destinations.  For the sake of orientation (not to mention a pleasant ride with countless photo opportunities) you might like to take the round-trip journey from Circular Quay across Darling Harbor.  This journey starts by creeping past the Opera House (this is your opportunity to take a jillion pictures of this world famous landmark from dozens of fractionally different angles), then takes you under the gigantic Sydney Harbor Bridge, past Luna Amusement Park, the Australian National Maritime Museum, the Sydney Aquarium, the Powerhouse Museum and the touristy Harborside shopping mall. 

If you'd like to stretch you legs in less touristy surroundings during the return trip, a stopover in the gentrified suburb of Balmain is highly recommended.  A huge selection of restaurants, pubs (A.K.A. "hotels") and coffee shops line Darling Street which conveniently terminates at Balmain East dock.  Note:  The most appealing part of Darling Street is a good mile uphill from the dock.  Be prepared for a brisk walk.

For an entirely different outing, jump on a ferry going in the opposite direction for the thirty minute ride across Sydney Harbor toward Manly.  The general consensus of Sydneysiders is that Manly is a tourist infested neighborhood featuring a collection of tacky gift shops and food stalls selling the worst, overpriced food in Sydney.  However, the upside is that it's the staging area for several walks, including the ten kilometer Manly Scenic Walkway, and it boasts one of Sydney's most comely beaches.  Beware, groups of "blueys" (bluebottle jellyfish, A.K.A Portuguese man-of-war) are known to float through these waters from time to time.  Those who would rather not tempt fate and risk a bluey sting can still satisfactorily frolic in the water in one of Manly's two ocean-side, salt water pools.

While Manly is nice, you can't rightly talk beaches in Sydney without mentioning world famous Bondi Beach.  The attraction of the powerful Southern Hemisphere sun, respectable surf and half naked European tourists is enriched by an entertaining variety of ice-cream stands, trendy cafés, fish and chip joints and stores where you can buy anything from the requisite cheesy Bondi t-shirt to pricey surfing paraphernalia.  A short walk north of the beach is a collection of Aboriginal rock engravings and, if your timing is right, to the south you'll find the annual "Sculptures by the Sea" exhibit. 

For six weeks each October/November the coastline path leading away from the south end of Bondi is decorated by the sculpture works from an assembly of international artists.  Among the enticements during my visit were an elephant constructed out of old televisions, an army of giant, metal crabs invading from the sea, a pack of demons cruising downhill on bicycles and a twenty foot tall bottle decorated with flip-flop sandals - or "thongs" as the Aussies call them.

Lest I forget central Sydney itself; this is where those odd Christmas-in-summer feelings will be most pronounced.  Spending a day on Macquarie Street will allow you to bag essential holiday shopping while simultaneously absorbing some of Sydney's best early public buildings, including the Parliament House, Sydney Hospital, the Mint Building (now a museum), the Hyde Park Barracks (ditto), St James Church and the massive State Library of New South Wales.  The bulk of your souvenir shopping can be satisfied down at the Rocks or "Old Sydney town," adjacent to Circular Quay.  This former shantytown has been transformed into a kitschy tourist neighbourhood with historic cobblestone streets, colonial buildings, tea rooms, a weekend market, the Sydney Observatory and a multitude of shops selling crafts and art.  

There's no reindeer or elves, but the Featherdale Wildlife Park (www.featherdale.com.au), will cause you to regress back to Christmas Day childhood euphoria as you feed, pet and play with some of the 2,200 native Australian animals on display.  You can commune with kangaroos, wallabies, koala bears, parrots and wombats, while observing crocodiles and Tasmanian Devils from a safe distance.  There are emus, lizards, echidnas, penguins, cassowaries, some of the world's deadliest spiders and snakes and a who's-who of the brightly colored, unlikely shaped and "fowl tempered" birds of Australasia.

Finally, like all holidays, there's the mandatory feasting to be attended to and Sydney, indeed all of Australia, is arguably the best place in the world to satisfy this urge.  The bar has been set very high for food quality in Sydney, so high that any place trying to pass off anything less than exquisite cuisine cannot hope to survive for long.  Whether they are eating in a pricey restaurant or digging into a five dollar steak at a dive bar, Sydneysiders expect and therefore receive food quality that people in most cities can only hope to find in a few high priced, upscale restaurants.  Something as simple as take-out Thai food will shatter your expectations and succeed in sending you home with a newly spoiled palette that will not be satisfied by anything short of a return trip to Sydney. 

Even a visit to a suburban shopping mall food court will yield a shocking level of quality and unexpected options including Greek, Thai, Japanese, Indian, Italian, French and Chinese, with a few of the international fast food chains thrown in to pacify discombobulated tourists.  Sure, Sydney is a long way to go just for food, but with the best of every conceivable cuisine at delightfully reasonable prices on offer, you can't pretend like you're not seriously considering it.

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