Be a smug Santa and book a Christmas holiday now
Imagine how pleased “future you” will be if you get your Christmas travel planning out of the way now. Your wallet will thank you, too.
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Typically, I am a creature of Christmas chaos. With a small but scattered family, we are the    people who send out frantic WhatsApp messages somewhere around November 30, only to discover that this person can’t do this day, that person can’t travel to that location and any suggestions to meet somewhere in the middle – such as a restaurant or holiday home – are scuppered by the reality of being far too late and disorganised to secure anything good.
But one year, I got it right. I had the foresight to lock in a bunch of friends and family for a trip to Culburra on the NSW South Coast – and I booked it six months in advance. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of driving into an Aussie coastal town during the height of the summer rush and pulling the car up to a spacious, gorgeous holiday home close to the beach and the shops, because you were smart enough to get your act together early. “Future me” thanked “past me” profusely.
July is right in the middle of the Christmas vacation booking sweet spot – not just for the big day itself but the weeks before and after. Get in quick and you’ll get the pick of the deals, accommodation and destinations. Maybe this is the year for a white Christmas. Or Christmas on the open ocean. Or maybe it’s the time to ditch tradition altogether and travel somewhere the festive season is celebrated in a way that’s entirely different to your own.
Get ready to be the smuggest Santa ever this December with our guide to booking Christmas in July.
Wander in Europe’s frosty Christmas markets
The typical hallmarks of an Aussie Christmas are the tang of salty air, the sizzle of prawns on the barbecue and the sweet fragrance of flowering gums. But if you want to discover the frosty, toasty festive season described in Christmas carols, it has to be Europe.
Nothing encapsulates the spirit of the season more than the annual Christmas markets, largely those in Germany, Hungary and Austria, which twinkle with fairy lights and boughs of holly, and are rich with the spicy fragrance of gingerbread and mulled wine.
One option is to pick and stick to a single town to get to know it thoroughly. Cologne in Germany and Vienna in Austria each have multiple markets and centuries of Christmas tradition. Another is to dip into several Christmas epicentres, such as with Trip-A-Deal’s 16-day European Christmas Markets tour, which begins in Vienna and ends in Munich (and can be partially paid for with Qantas points). Avalon Waterways will drift you – romantically – from market to market by river with its seven-day Christmastime on the Danube tour, which concentrates on several smaller river towns including Passau and Regensburg.
Let someone else cook
While a home-cooked Christmas feast is never going to go out of fashion, many of us are increasingly time-poor and simply… poor-poor. Rather than lump all the festive food responsibilities onto one person, consider booking a fancy restaurant for your Christmas lunch.
Hotels are generally a good bet; the larger ones around the country will typically put on a Christmas spread. The Lex inside the W Hotel in Brisbane, for example, is planning a three-course lunch that includes snacks and a three-hour drinks package. Bookings for The Lex lunch go live in September, but if you jump in now you’ll be first on the waitlist – email bfreservations.wbrisbane@whotels.com
In New South Wales, Cafe Sydney is putting on a grand five-course Christmas extravaganza that will feature a Christmas pudding made to the special English recipe of executive chef Sarahjane Brown’s grandmother (“It’s heavy on the brandy!” Sarahjane promises). A Christmas Day booking at the always-exceptional Quay restaurant, with its views over the harbour, has to be the best way to dazzle any visitors in town for the holidays.
Celebrate in another culture
Sometimes the best way to enjoy the spirit of the season is by escaping it altogether. Many countries in Southeast Asia don’t traditionally celebrate Christmas, which can make them intriguing and enlightening places to explore while everyone else is doing mistletoe and eggnog.
Sonia Orrego from Wendy Wu Tours Australia says that in some parts of Asia, a December tour can hit a little differently – in the best possible way.
“Wendy Wu’s Christmas Collection is not about Christmas celebrations specifically, but rather about providing people with memorable experiences during Christmas,” Sonia says of the group’s December tours. “As part of our Christmas in Thailand tour, for example, we invite our clients to spend some of Christmas Day helping out at an elephant orphanage.”
Afterwards, there’s feasting, of course – but Thai style, which means it’s more about curries and larb than Christmas pud.
Get snowed in with a Canadian white Christmas
If you’ve never experienced a Christmas that doesn’t involve pool noodles, beach umbrellas and shorts and thongs, this could be the year to try for a white Christmas. Twinkling lights, snow-covered roofs, toboggans dashing through the snow. Trust us, a cold Christmas will suddenly mean all those Christmas carols you learnt as a kid make a lot more sense.
White Christmases aren’t a feature everywhere in the northern hemisphere, but Canada is a fairly safe bet. APT’s Twelve Days of Christmas tour from December 17-28 includes an overnight rail journey through the snowy Rockies from Vancouver to Jasper, as well as festivities in Whistler, Lake Louise and Banff. The APT team, which has been touring Canada for 30 years, says there’s no better country to make you feel like you’ve stepped inside a Hallmark Christmas movie, particularly the snowy backdrop of Whistler, whose streets are lined with trees lit up in every colour. The Instagram pics practically take themselves.
Gather the family in a holiday home that makes everyone happy
Thanks to issues around housing density and affordability, more and more Australians are living in apartments rather than detached homes, particularly in the capital cities. And that means fewer people have access to the sorts of dwellings that can accommodate large extended families for Christmas or other big celebrations. One option is to consider booking a holiday house where everyone can gather together and share the Christmas duties.
When it comes to short-term rentals, if you snooze, you lose. “Our advice is to consider planning and booking your holiday home now in order to have the widest choice, especially in hotspots like the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, the South Coast and Central Coast in New South Wales and the Sunshine Coast in Queensland,” says Sarah King from Stayz. Costs can be shared among family members and even spread out in the lead-up: many Stayz hosts have an option that allows payment to be broken up into smaller lump sum payments over the year. Keep an eye on cancellation policies in case plans change.
Ring in the new year at sea
Cruise ships don’t dock themselves just because it’s Christmas. Almost all cruise lines have voyages that will be dotted somewhere on the globe on December 25, and it can be a fantastic way to celebrate not only Christmas, but other festive celebrations such as Hanukkah. If you like the idea of exploring Australia when you have a good chunk of time off work or school, but don’t want to pay big money for scarce accommodation, a local cruise could be the answer.
Oceania’s Essential Australia voyage on board the Regatta departs from Sydney on December 22, circumnavigates the country and returns on January 25. The festivities begin as soon as guests embark, with the ship’s common areas festooned with decorations, lights, garlands and gingerbread villages. There are also Christmas and Hanukkah menus, visits from Santa Claus and carolling. Ports include the Whitsundays, Darwin and even a detour northwards to Bali.
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