A racist usage of the Southern Cross contrasts with Indigenous narratives about the constellation, suggesting the symbol can never be contained within a single defining narrative.
Mother’s Day was a religious event, as was the older English tradition of Mothering Sunday in which worshippers returned home to their ‘mother church’. But as this new celebration of Mothers’ Day spread around the English-speaking world, it preserved in public and private ritual a particular idea of womanhood. It asserted that true womanhood was motherly. By Kerrie Handasyde
Christmas, at least in Western countries like Australia, brings together diverse myths and European traditions. Santa magically produces and delivers presents to the entire world in one night, hot Australians dream of a white Christmas, Jesus's miraculous birth to a young virgin is re-enacted in nativity plays, and Christians gather to worship and celebrate the great mystery.