A long, slightly wandering blog, not least because I'm missing a chunk of my left thumb, sacrificed to the great god Picnic using a very bloody (no pun intended) sharp bread knife, which makes my typing a little spoggly.

But it is a perfect lead-in to tonight's topic. You see, it's amazing how overseas travel defines what things mean to you.

I got home today from a lovely picnic in the Fitzroy gardens (where an engagement was announced and tennis balls were slobbered on and someone got to lie on a blanket without her pants on and was solemnly informed by her Aunty Tree that this was as good as life got, at least until she started having sex) and disinfected and re-bandaged my thumb, as I'd sort of done a bit of a crap job of it at the picnic.

As I did so, I made up a nice milky solution of Dettol, a disinfectant that has been used by mums all around Australia (and the UK, I believe) to disinfect nasty wounds and scrapes. It's brown and has a very distinctive smell. I could not even begin to describe it, other than to say that, for me, Dettol smells like getting better.

Many moons ago, on my very first visit to the US, I was holidaying in lovely Maui (Old Lahaina Town to be precise) and had gone for a bit of a wander about the hotel gardens. Being the complete klutz that I am, I managed to bang my foot against a volcanic rock and rip off a toenail completely.

Ow. Buggering ow. Buggering fucking ow.

I hobbled, bleeding freely, into the lobby and asked for a first aid kit. They looked at me like I had just shat on the American flag while slaughtering kittens. Now, please note, I had not asked for a doctor or a lawyer or US$20 million in reparations, just a first aid kit so I could bandage up my toe and go back to my walk. After much fussing and dithering (and rude behaviour on their part) and while I bled all over their lovely tiled floor, I got a first aid kit, hobbled into a corner and started to fix up my toe.

Only they didn't have anything that smelled like getting better.

I nearly cried.

After all the hassle they had put me through (I had AIDS, I was going to sue, I did it deliberately, blah, blah, blah), all I wanted was my mum, some Dettol and a bandaid. Now, I'm sure there was something in there appropriately disinfectant-y that would have killed all the requisite germs, but it just didn't smell like getting better.

In a long, rambly, round-about way, I had a similar experience in the US on my last holiday. No blood, this time, but I realised how much a part of me something was.

Before I go on, I know Ghost's family reads this and I should point out that nothing said beyond this point has any bearing on them at all. They were wonderful, welcoming and friendly and put on a wonderful Christmas for Ghost and I. They just weren't scorching temperatures, cricket on Boxing Day and flaming plum pud.

For years, I've wondered what Christmas in the Northern Hemisphere would be like. A Christmas where a hot meal at lunch time made sense because it's not 108F outside and where there really was snow and holly and mistletoe and all the stuff they sing about in the carols. Last Christmas, I got my opportunity, spending it in the US with Ghost's family.

And suddenly, like hydrogen peroxide not smelling like getting better, I realised what it was that defined Christmas for me.

Christmas has nothing to do with Jack Frost nipping at your nose. It is searingly hot and the kitchen's a steaming furnace and mum has to wipe sweaty strands of hair out of her eyes as she pulls the turkey out of the oven.

Christmas is stupid christmas crackers with naff toys in them and those ridiculous paper hats which the requisite uncle or aunt refuses to wear and which sag in the heat. It's the lame jokes that come packaged inside and the sharp 'POP' as you pull them.

It's the red-faced pride on mum's face as she brings out the revered pudding, flaming with brandy, and the crap photo you always try to take to capture the blue flames dancing over its surface. And it never tastes as good as you imagine, but you always eat far too much of it anyway.

It's going for a walk with the family after lunch in the blazing afternoon sun, with the requisite uncle or aunt who refuses to go because they're too sleepy from eating all that triptophan, and ending up at a football oval where someone's frisbee or nerf bullet or something or other ends up irretrievably stuck up a tree.

It's a quick game of cricket where hitting the fence is a six and Aunty So-and-so doesn't have to go out first time because can't really see the ball coming at her, but is a bloody good sport for playing anyway.

It's waiting for the cool of the evening to finally hit and picking at the left-overs as darkness falls, despite still being stuffed from lunch.

It's a lazy picnic by the beach or in a park on Boxing Day, the following day, with your family and the dogs and the left-overs and whichever toys didn't get irretrievably stuck up a tree the day before, where you all lay around on the picnic blankets and stuff yourselves all over again and remember just how fucking lucky you are.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what Christmas is all about for me.

Don't get me wrong, Christmas with Ghost's family was magical and wonderful and I'm glad I spent it with them. But Dettol will always smell like getting better and Christmas is spent in the sun.