I find that Australia Day is on the 26th of January, which just happens to fall right around the time that we will be studying Australia’s colonization. Does one do anything on Australia Day? Are there any properly Australian things we could do around then? 
(<–summer day guy, who is not here)
Have a barbeque on the beach while listening to Triple J’s Hottest 100 Countdown and watching the cricket and drinking beer. Could be challenging for those of you in the colder parts of the Northern Hemisphere.
Or you can call it Invasion Day in solidarity with the indigenous population who don’t recall January 26th 1788 with quite so much fondness.
There are official celebrations held in Sydney on 26 January each year. There area also local celebrations around the suburbs, often in conjunction with naturalisation ceremonies. But the average Australian probably doesn’t do anything much more than sleep in and have a BBQ or something like that.
Or Survival Day for a slightly more upbeat ‘celebration’.
Yeah, I figured a barbeque might cover it. Here in California that’s totally doable, unless it’s raining. Too bad we haven’t got any Smarties.
We are studying about aboriginal culture as well–since we’re doing the history of the world chronologically, we’ve done a couple of passes through that in the last two years, as well as this time. This is the first time we’ll study any English-speaking people there.
This, except it will be in my backyard. Also you can take bets on who will be number 1 in the hottest 100.
Rather than watching cricket, it is commonly played in the back yard or the beach. The only equipment needed is a cricket bat and a tennis ball (muckaround bats can be pretty cheap, but you have to learn the technique of batting (which is radically alien to those brought up on baseball) and bowling (ditto).
For stumps, you put up something about the right height and shape (two cartons that beer came in stacked on top of each other works excellently - some brewers actually print half-pictures of stumps on the cartons for that purpose).
Modify the rules to adjust to the size of the backyard - 6 and out, one hand one bounce, electric wicketkeeper, etc.
Ooooh, yummy. We’ll have to do those!
All I know about cricket I learned from Douglas Adams. That’s probably not really a good thing.
Hah - all the things I’m doing have been suggested. We will be out in the backyard having a barbeque, listening to Triple J’s Hottest 100 (the world’s largest music poll, according to that wikipedia page -this I did not know) and playing dodgy backyard cricket with stumps drawn on the side of our shed (we seem to have misplaced our actual stumps…)
Triple J has an internet streaming service you could probably tune into if you wanted to give them a dose of pop culture and you would also be able to get the PM Kevin Rudd’s Australia Day Message from YouTube or in press release format simply by Googling, though how much you expect them to be interested in that I don’t know. Also, last year’s was pretty cheesy 
- “together we can make Australia a land of puppies and cream blah blah blah…”
The lamingtons suggestion is heartily seconded. Those were my favourite treat as kid.
As far as cricket goes - I’ve come across a few “Cricket for Americans” explanations here and there and I’m pretty sure there’s one online somewhere that explains it using baseball as a reference base. Backyard cricket is a pretty damned casual affair in comparison to professional cricket however - if you wanted to play and could get hold of a cricket bat or a reasonable replacement (you can use a tennis ball instead of a cricket ball and there are countless ways to improvise stumps) I am betting numerous dopers would be willing to post a quick and easy to follow set of rules for some American kids who haven’t experienced the game before to play. I will if no one else wants to - but I am renowned for my poor teaching skills and would likely make a pig’s ear of my explanations.
Haven’t had a Lamington for years!
Thanks for posting the recipe, will have to try it 
It’s basically 4th of July for Australians. I don’t know if they still do it, but Perth used to have a big firework display synchronised to music on 26th January. People would make a full day out of travelling to the city, picnicking on the banks of the river, then watching the display.
A mate’s birthday is on the 25th, so on Australia Day I usually nurse a monster hangover.
I’ll be inside. With the curtains shut. And the fans on. And if we’ve got the internet running by then, I’ll probably be playing TF2.
I’m not really ocker.
In Melbourne I guess for many it’s off to The Big Day Out.
Nothing. The day means nothing to me apart from a day not at work. If the weather is nice it will be a BBQ and pool, but there’s nothing special that happens at the c@w household.
As others have said, it’ll be a barbecue at a friend’s place listening to Triple J’s Hottest 100.
There will be beer.
(Off to vote on the Hottest 100. Thanks for the reminder!)
Sun. BBQ. Beer.
This is a country in solidarity. 
It seems that none of the Aussies have been polite enough to link to The Hottest 100. When it is on 2PM Sydney time you can listen live to it here. They have the best collection of music on earth and I am pretty sure they are the best youth oriented music radio station on earth.
I have been listening to them for 30 years and they keep my love of new music alive.
Not really – it’s much less significant than Independence Day. In the US, every town has a parade on Independence Day, then fireworks in the evening. For Australia Day, you only get fireworks in the big cities, and people spend the rest ofthe day treating it as a normal day off work.
The problem is than Australia Day is commemorating the day that New South Wales became a penal colony, while Independence Day is about the declaration of independence, i.e., the day that the American colonies decided that they were no longer colonies. Australia Day really should be on the day that Australia became a country – but that was January 1st (in 1901), and that day already has a holiday.
How many people in Australia buy their own fireworks on Australia Day? Here in America, the Fourth of July seems very similar except in most relatively rural areas, people buy their own fireworks (usually from cheaply-made little roadside shacks) and have their own displays (usually without any casualties, but sometimes a hose is needed to put out a minor brush fire). Is that done in Australia? I know it has very wide open areas.