Photo: 1897 drawing of an Australian prospectors' Christmas pudding ruined by falling into a fire.ABC Radio's Kel Richards wrote a book called the Aussie Bible, which gives traditional Bible stories a distinctly Aussie flavour. We all know the story of Christmas, but how many of you have heard it "Aussie Style"?
Here are a few exapmples:
"So Joe hiked up from Nazareth (in Galilee Shire) to Bethlehem (in Judea Shire), because this spot in the mulga was where King David came from, and Joe's family tree had King David up in the top branches. He went there to fill in the forms and sign the register with his fiancee, Mary, who was pretty near nine months by this time.
While they were there, she gave birth to a baby boy. She wrapped him in a bunny rug, and tucked him up in a feed trough in a back shed, because the pub was full to bursting."
and -
"And before you could say, "Well, I'll be blowed!" the whole sky was filled with more angels than you could count, all singing away at the top of their lungs (if angels have got lungs, that is): "God is great! God is bonzer - and to everyone on this planet who's on God's side: peace and goodwill, and, by the way, Happy Christmas." (Which rather confused the drovers because they'd never heard of Christmas before.)
I am not quite sure what the angels wished upon those who aren't on God's side, but maybe they were foretelling of the birth of George Bush to take care of that issue.
Describing how the drovers, (shepherds) spread the news, Kel tells it this way -
"..they told every Tom, Dick and Harry about what had happened, and everyone who heard the story was blown away by it. But Mary just made a mental note of these things, and tucked them away in a corner of her heart.
The drovers went back to the paddock, and their mob of sheep, as excited as a racehorse on Melbourne Cup Day, and saying what a bottler God was, because everything was spot on - just as they'd been told"
Related article: Kel Richards: he speaks their language
