Happy Yobbo Day!

So, what's the most Australian way to celebrate Australia Day? Is it the all-day barbecue? Compulsory backyard cricket? Beer and fireworks? Wearing the flag, and flying the Union Jack and Southern Cross from every balcony, antenna, and flowerpot?

Australia Day's the only holiday in the calendar where people start celebrating the day before. And don't stop until the wee hours of the day after.

Sure, people get up early for the Dawn Service on Anzac Day, but they're quiet and respectful about it. They haven't got 96FM blaring all night, they're not scraping the barbecue clean at 11pm, they're not making beer runs through the night, or sneaking their cars into the prohibited zones at 7am.

Whatever Australia Day was originally conceived to be a celebration of, it has come to be Yobbo Day.

And I love it.

Somehow, it's definitely Australian in a way that no officially sanctioned activity could ever hope to be, because the day is what the people have made it to be. Rather along the same lines of how you might mumble your way through Advance Australia Fair along with everyone else, but it's Waltzing Matilda and I Still Call Australia Home you know the words to. That's where the emotional core is.

And whether it's lamb chops, or prawns, or the national double-act of roo and emu, you have to do a barbecue today. It's virtually an act of treason not to.

I was going to blog about Australian symbols, but I can't frankly be arsed. We've had a lovely walk on the foreshore and the traditional breakfast of yes, barbecued sausage in a bun, and it's too damned nice a day to spend pondering national iconology.

Suffice it to say, today's a day to appreciate what we have, especially the freedom to be loud and stupid, and to barbecue dead animals and blow things up and make pretty lights and scare the birds. Tomorrow is another workday after all.

But today is about being us as loud as we can be, for good and bad. Today we celebrate being ourselves as we would hope always to be - ordinary, decent, fun-loving folk.