Countries that have Christmas in the summer...

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Is there anyone living in a country where you have Christmas in the height of summer? Do your Christmas cards have pictures of beaches and sunshine? It's hard to imagine that half the world celebrates Christmas in the summer, because everything I know about Christmas seems wintery.

Also you must celebrate Halloween in the spring, which is also hard to imagine because Halloween is very autumnal. But then you must celebrate Easter in the autumn. Now that's hard to imagine because Easter is all about things coming to life and spring is all about things blooming and animals mating.

What's it like having Christmas in summer, Halloween in spring and Easter in autumn? And summer break in winter?

Actually it isn't "half of the world".

Most of the landmass of the world is north of the Equator. Most of the ocean is south.

So only about 16 or maybe 20 percent of the world's population lives south of the Equator. Because there is more ocean and less land down there.

Australia and New Zealand are in the temperate southern hemisphere where the seasons are reversed from the UK and the USA. But put together those two have less than one percent of the world's population.

Most southern hemispherians live in either Africa or South America. Maybe half of Africa's 1.2 billion people live south of the Equator, but most of the several hundred million South Americans live south of the equator. But even on those two continents most folks live near the equator, so they are in the tropics where its hot all of the time. Its not that the seasons are flipped from us, its that they never have a cold season at all.

Only in extreme south Africa and in Chile and Argentina do you get back into the temperate zone and start having winter again.

In Africa Paganism, Islam, and Christianity, all compete for allegiance. So I don't even know what percentage of Africans even celebrate Christmas anyway.

Basically only South Africa, Argentina, Chile, Australia, and New Zealand, have what you're talking about: a temperate climate with a clear difference between hot and cold seasons, and also have those seasons reversed from us Northern Hemispherians.

The combined populations of those places -is probably not even five percent of the human race (guessing off the top of my head). No where near fifty percent of the human race actually has "Christmas in summer".

South Africa is 80% Christian. Australia and New Zealand are predominately Christian, and Chile, Argentina, and Southern Brazil even more so.

I believe those are the countries the OP has in mind. Considering the part of the Southern Hemisphere at high enough latitudes to experience well-defined seasons, it's overwhelmingly Christian, and the question makes a lot of sense.

I just made that very point. Thanks for being a parrot.

Its only those few small population countries that have both a temperate zone cold season, and are in the southern hemisphere, that are actual examples of what she is talking about.

Its not "half of the world" like she assumes.

However I do admit that because Wrongplanet is slanted toward the English speaking world we do have a fair number of Aussies, New Zealanders, and even South Africans. So she probably will get some responses.

I do believe we are arguing details at the expense of the main topic. To any Aussies and New Zealanders and residents of the Union of South Africa, how is Christmas different over there?

I'm from Australia and yes it's the height of summer.
Christmas cards are mainly traditional, snow and snowflakes and all that.
Christmas dinner is usually a cold collation, but there is sometimes a roast meat or baked ham served with it too, trifle or pavlova with fruit for dessert and lots of iced drinks.

We don't really celebrate Halloween much at all, it's not a tradition here, although it seems that shop staff are dressing up more and having Halloween sales, or teenagers might have a Halloween themed party which is really just a drinking party, that's about it.

Easter is traditionally the holiday where everyone goes holidaying or camping. Easter is a very pleasant time of year because the days get cooler then.

Summer break is in summer.

Wow, I've learnt a lot in this thread. Thank you all who took the time to reply.