weird time of year for summer

this time of year still seems a bit weird to me in australia (i guess it is only the 5th christmas/summer i've had here). first the christmas season seems a bit weird with warm weather. for the canada club christmas party a few weeks ago we dripped with sweat as we all sat in a small-ish un-air-conditioned hall and feasted on a potluck lunch and then played baseball (while some aussies played cricket 100m away from us). we all felt horrible for poor santa who made an appearance to bring some early gifts to the kids at the party (he really needs to lose the fuzzy suit in australia). the shops all play the same christmas tunes from the northern hemisphere that talk about snow and sledding and winter (and a few aussie ones about kangaroos leading santa's sleigh and aussie 12 days of christmas.....) but they don't really make sense when the air conditioners are blasting and everyone is walking around in shorts and singlets (tank tops).
i was wandering around the shops today and saw a couple things that seemed a bit odd until i thought about it a bit. first i saw an employee in a shop fixing up a large barrel filled with australian flags. my first thought was "that's a lot of flags. is he just trying to fill a gap left from christmas merchandise?" i realized a couple min later (when i walked down an isle filled with australian flag paraphernalia) that australia day is in a few weeks. i walked into another shop where employees where boxing up what was left of their christmas stuff and putting out binders, pens, notebooks and other school supplies. it seemed a bit weird to replace christmas stuff with that until i remembered that this is summer holidays. kids will be going back to school in a month (and i'll be going back to work-- with a whole new group of kids).
i wonder if christmas in summer will ever feel normal.....