Bah, humbug. Seven tacky Christmas traditions that need trimming

3 months ago 6

Opinion

Ditch the punch and punchlines, stick to ham and prawns, and have yourself a very Terry Christmas.

Terry Durack

Terry DurackGood Weekend columnist and Traveller contributor

December 5, 2025 — 11:43am

What is it about Christmas that brings out the Ebenezer Scrooge in us? So many Christmas traditions are as tacky as tinsel, including tinsel. Here are the ones that I feel are most worth trimming.

Illustration by Simon Letch

Being woken up by the kids way too early. My son is now all grown up, so this isn’t happening to me anymore. It’s happening (hehe) to him.
Dry turkey. Turkey is notoriously hard to cook and necessitates a bucketful of gravy to cover up the fact that the meat is as dry as the straw in a manger. Ham is easy. Prawns are easy. Stick to ham and prawns.
Christmas carols. The songs we love to hate and hate to love. I mean, Wham. Wizard. Paul McCartney’s pappy Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time. The torture is leavened by The Waitresses (Christmas Wrapping), John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band (Happy Xmas (War Is Over)) and the Pogues (Fairytale of New York), which never ceases to warm the cockles of my heart.
Santa snacks. The last time I left something out for Santa, the ants got to it first and had a very merry Christmas. This year, I’m going to come down the chimney myself and have all the beer and fruit cake.
Christmas cracker jokes. So bad they’re good. At their best when everyone groans as if in pain at the punchline (or perhaps they ate too much Christmas pud and genuinely are). My wife sources her own jokes from the internet. They’re sharp, witty and topical, which is just so wrong.
Punch bowls. A festive punch, slightly fizzy and refreshing, is delicious when icy-cold, which is for the first 10 minutes. Then it sits there for eight hours on a hot day and becomes a warm, sticky, seething mass of microbial joy for all mankind.
Grinches. They say they hate Christmas because it’s crass, overly commercial, expensive, exhausting and they really – genuinely and positively – hate Brussels sprouts. But they still like getting presents.

Now let’s look on the bright side. No matter how much you may disapprove of Christmas, there’s always Boxing Day – which means ham sandwiches aplenty and cricket and the Sydney-to-Hobart on the telly. It’s almost worth it.

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Terry Durack has been reviewing restaurants and seeking out new food experiences for three decades. Author of six books and former critic for London’s Independent on Sunday and the Sydney Morning Herald, Terry was twice named Glenfiddich Restaurant Critic of The Year in the UK, and World Food Media’s Best Restaurant Critic. Australian-born and a resident of Sydney, he brings a unique perspective on the global food scene to his travel writing.