It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,” says the Fashion Police column in the Sydney Morning Herald. “And the annual crimes against fashion include flashing Santa earrings, reindeer antlers, naughty elf lingerie and forgetting to apply sunscreen.” Sunscreen? It’s Christmas, but not as I know it.

Every year around the middle of December, my mother and I check in with each other, asking: “Do you feel it?” or “Have you felt it yet?” — “it” being that Christmassy feeling. Maybe it’s only diehard festive fans like us who really succumb to it, but you know what I mean: that tingling fizz of excitement, anticipation and sentimental conviviality specific to the season. It makes you spend too much, ask strangers’ children what Santa is bringing, choke up at the sight of old friends in the pub and parumpapumpum under your breath while queuing in the bank.

This year, however, I’m in Sydney and, frankly, it’s just not Christmassy. That’s not solely because of the need for sunscreen, although you do need it (“At least factor 30+,” warns an Aussie friend), but they don’t go for it the way we do. There aren’t as many street decorations or themed window displays and there certainly isn’t the same frenzy of consumerism — although that was probably lacking a little at home this year, too.

I’m determined to engender that festive feeling in myself somehow and, to the indulgent tolerance of a friend from Cork who has invited me to be her temporary flatmate in Sydney, I spend my first week in Australia on an all-out hunt for Christmassiness.

A friend invites us along to drinks with her workmates. We start at the Opera Bar, a chichi beer garden next to the Opera House. It’s Friday and the place is thronged with a smartly dressed, after-work crowd, many drinking champagne. It’s warm but overcast. “It’s a pity the weather’s not better,” says one of the workmates. I smile politely and think, but do not say: “It’s a pity it’s not a hell of a lot worse and then this might actually feel like Christmas, instead of a garden party in August.”

Don’t get me wrong: I’m having a good time and I continue to do so for the next 10 hours of bar-hopping. But while everyone we meet is full of seasonal cheer — most particularly the group of 20 or so all sweltering in Santa costumes — I still don’t feel “it”.

I ask my Aussie friend if she is going to the beach on Christmas Day. “No,” she says, almost wistfully. She’s going to her family’s farm, which is out in the bush, six hours from Brisbane. It will be at least 40C. “We’ll have champagne at breakfast, then go from the air-conditioned house to the air-conditioned car to the air-conditioned swimming pool and then home again for turkey and ham,” she says.

“Lovely,” I say.

“Bloody hot,” she replies.

A couple of days later, we head for a live outdoor carol service. It is being given by a four-woman a cappella group, who trill lustily through a selection of global carols (“This one’s from Argentina! Join in everybody!). The stage is next to an enormous fir tree garbed in coloured lights and neon reindeer. Most of the audience is in shorts and T-shirts; a few are wearing Santa hats.

We sit on the ground to watch, a few yards from a bored- looking man selling ice cream. Admittedly, it is lovely to sit and listen as the sun sets over Darling Harbour. I take a closer look at the tree. The reindeer are actually kangaroos.

The next day, I am cheered by the sound of a marching brass band rattling through Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I can’t see it, though, because I’m stuck in a hair salon two storeys up from street level as a colourist winces at my sun-scorched mop.

My temporary flatmate has suggested we fill stockings for each other, so once my hair appointment is done, I go shopping. This is what I needed — someone for whom to buy presents. The more bags I accumulate, the cheerier I feel. Strolling out of the Victorian-era Strand Arcade, I notice a large crowd in Haigh’s, a fancy chocolate shop. A security guard is marshalling the queue at the entrance. I giggle to myself. What could be more Christmassy than a chocolate shop with a bouncer?

Every year, once I get that feeling, I have it until January. In the end, this year is no different. It finally kicks in during the stocking shopping and lasts through a drunken Christmas Eve in an Irish bar (where Fairytale of New York is on repeat and the night ends with the national anthem — ours, not theirs) and a hazily hungover Christmas afternoon on Bondi beach, where we stick out like sore thumbs for wearing neither bikinis nor Santa hats. It’s then buoyed by a bottle of champagne, a roast turkey dinner and endless calls and texts from home on Christmas night.

On St Stephen’s Day, I step onto our terrace to smoke a cigarette. “Hello,” says a voice. I look around to see a small boy peeking up at me from the gap under the fairylight-draped fence between us and next door. “Excuth me, pleath can I have my ball back?” he lisps. I find the ball and throw it back over the fence.

“Thank you,” he says and disappears, before reappearing a couple of seconds later. “Merry Chrithmath,” he grins.

I beam back at him. I may be caked in sunscreen, but I’m still feeling pretty Christmassy.

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