INTERNATIONAL: Finally, Sydney lit up with Christmas light installations across the city centre, encouraging residents to get out and enjoy the festive season after a year that saw an extended coronavirus lockdown across the city.

Australia is the Land Down Under, where the seasons are opposite to Americans. While the North Hemisphere is celebrating Christmas on winter, with the famous snow falling on the sky, Australians are celebrating their Christmas during their summer vacation.

The most popular event of the Christmas season is called Carols by Candlelight. People come together at night to light candles and sing Christmas carols outside. It’s a custom for Australian families to do activities outside, such as grilling meals outdoors on the barbecue, which they call the "barbie."

Families decorate their homes with ferns, palm leaves, and evergreens, along with the colorful flowers that bloom in summer called Christmas bush and Christmas bellflower.

Christmas festivities begin in late November, when schools and church groups present Nativity plays.

On Christmas Eve, families may attend church together. Some children expect Father Christmas to leave gifts, and others wait for Santa Claus to visit and deliver gifts. They all sing carols throughout the month of December.

St Mary's Cathedral in the heart of Sydney is bathed in a visual light display with scenes of an angel, Mary and Joseph and the three wise men riding camels.

Shoppers browsed stores in Pitt Street Mall under the Canopy of Lights, as others walked through a candycane-inspired light installation, in Darling Harbour precinct.

The tallest Christmas tree in New South Wales state stood in Martin Place has been decorated with more than 110,000 LED lights and 330 baubles as Christmas carols flooded the square, adding to the joyous spirit of the season.

^{PHOTO: ST MARY'S CATHEDRAL WITH LIGHT DISPLAY, CANOPY OF LIGHTS IN PITT STREET MALL, CHRISTMAS TREE IN MARTIN PLACE}