The sun is burning my skin. The scent of the ocean blends with the aroma of cotton candy from festive stalls on the boardwalk. The children run along the beach wearing little red Santa hats—not to protect them from the cold, but to shield them from the sun. Cheerful Christmas carols are blaring through the speakers, but in my heart, everything is a chaotic longing—longing for snow, the smell of pine, and that simple joy that needs no explanation. How do you celebrate Christmas when everything you know about it feels so far away?

I hug my knees and gaze at the ocean. The void I feel in my chest refuses to fade. I close my eyes and return to my childhood, to the first Christmas I can remember. I see snow, and I smell oranges and cinnamon. It’s Christmas Eve in Romania, before the revolution. On the first floor of an apartment in a small city center where I live with my parents and younger brother, I press my nose to the window and watch the snowflakes fall slowly. I must be about three years old. My father comes home, his cossack hat dusted with snow, blowing warm air in his frozen hands. “Make way! I’ve brought the biggest tree I could find,” he announces proudly. My mother, in her emerald-green robe with rosy cheeks from the cold, helps him carry it inside. The fresh scent of resin fills the room. Then Dad pulls out some wood, nails, and tools to set up the biggest tree in the world, right in our living room. As if this wasn’t impressive enough, the next morning, I find it decorated with lights, glittering baubles, and Lebăda chocolate candy. Underneath it are gifts labeled with our names. I don’t remember their contents, nor much about my younger brother – except the fact that he stepped into a nail and at the hospital they bandaged the wrong foot. But I do remember the joy—that light on my father’s face, my mother’s frost-kissed cheeks, her fairy-like smile, her long black hair, and the kitchen cabinet where a laughing little boy sits with a tiny gift in his lap.

I open my eyes, and all I see is the endless, calm blue ocean. But the void remains. I feel caught between two worlds, between two Christmases that will never meet.

My husband approaches with a smile, handing me a cold drink. “Thinking about snow again, aren’t you?” he asks.

I nod, but my smile is crooked.
How can I explain? How can I put into words how much I miss a Christmas I feel will never return?

“I miss it,” I tell him. “I miss the Christmases back home. The smell of the tree, the carols that made sense… that childhood magic. Do you feel like it’s Christmas? Do you feel the holiday spirit?”

“I don’t,” he replies, looking at me gently. “But maybe the magic isn’t lost. Maybe we’re just looking for it in the wrong place. And here, where nothing is familiar about this holiday, maybe here is where we truly see what Christmas means.”

His words hit me. Have I stopped seeing what really matters?

He sits beside me, and the kids pause their play to swarm us. “Australia is home now,” he says simply. I want to argue, to tell him that home means something else. But I look at the two happy faces, still sticky from cotton candy, and I realize he’s right.

“What makes Christmas Christmas?” I think aloud.

The question haunts me all day.

Is it the crunch of snow underfoot? The smell of cinnamon and gingerbread? Is it something I’ve lost and will never find again?

The answer settles within me slowly, like a truth growing clearer as the day goes on: when the kids surround us, begging to decorate the tree; when my husband laughs, helping them with ornaments rolling everywhere; when I see in their eyes a light painfully familiar, reminiscent of the Christmases of my childhood.

At dusk, under a modest tree, our laughter fills the house. I tell them the story of Christmas as I know it from my childhood: not just about gifts and abundant meals, but about a star shining in the dark sky, about hope in the hardest times, about unconditional love and a baby born in a manger.

I share the tales of my childhood, of snow and carols, of my dad with his snowy hat, of my mom in her green robe. The kids listen, captivated, and in their eyes, I recognise the magic—and it fills the void in my heart.

And then I understand.

I close my eyes and smile. I no longer see snow-covered trees or feel the icy scent of winter. The essence of Christmas doesn’t lie in decorations or weather; it has always been here, in my heart. It never disappeared— I just needed to rediscover it and give it new meaning. Our children will live the holiday, not through what we, the parents, experienced, but through what we offer them now, through what we can create together. The strength, beauty, and magic of Christmas are now in our hands. They don’t depend on seasons or places, but on the love we choose to pour into these days. It’s about the joy of being together, about the moments that will, one day, become their most cherished memories.

I realise that this Christmas under Australia’s blazing sun is an unexpected gift. It teaches me that the spirit of the holidays isn’t dictated by what we see around us but by what we carry within. My children may not know a Christmas with snow, but they now known a Christmas with love—and that’s all that matters.

“Merry Christmas!” a tiny, lisping voice calls out. I open my eyes and plug in the lights.

“Wow! Mama, you can do magic!” the voice continues, with Christmas glowing in its eyes.