Christmas, it seems, is the perfect celebration to bring out our true classist, or classless selves. From how we decorate our homes, what we serve for Christmas lunch, what gifts we give, and how we respond to receiving gifts. Etiquette expert Julie Lamberg-Burnet told the Daily Mail that all of these factors determine our place on the bogan spectrum.
Let’s start with decorations.
If you’re really into beer and Christmas, you’ll be tempted to bring these two elements together and make a beer can Christmas tree. Lamberg-Burnet infers that if you’re wanting your inner-bogan to remain hidden, this would be a bad move.
This beer can craze is not only reserved for beer, some avid bogans like to use Bundaberg rum cans, which scores very high on the Christmas bogan scale.
If you are a die-hard and unashamed bogan who loves Christmas so much that you want it to go on for ages, please, keep your decorations up until February. Maybe even March. The longer you leave them up after January 6th, the bigger bogan you are.
If you’re wanting to keep those bogan tendencies under wraps, Lamberg-Burnet encourages you to take those decorations down before the bogan deadline of January 6th.
Some of us need the world to know how much we love Christmas, so we simply cannot contain our decorations in our place of residence - we must bring them on the road with us. If you feel the need to decorate your car with reindeer antlers, you are proving that not only do you love Christmas but that you are in fact, a devoted bogan. Respect.
Lastly, if you like lasers and fake snow, you’re not only obviously one of the most fun people on the planet, but you are absolutely coming out to your neighbourhood as a delightful bogan.
Now let’s move on to some tell-tale bogan signs when it comes to food.
Cheese is always an easy signal of where you hang your hat on the fancy scale. We all love delicious cubes of tasty cheese on a stick, but if you serve them, you are 100% a wonderful bogan.
If you would like to masquerade as a fancy pants, Lamberg-Burnet suggests you should serve a cheese platter with three large servings of expensive cheese with crackers that are so dear you hope the check-out person accidentally forgets to scan them.
Now, when it comes to dips, your behaviour will always be a clear indicator of class. If you’re proud of your bogan heritage, dip, then dip again. If you want people to know, or think, you went to a private school, don’t you dare double-dip that chip.
Condiments also matter, it seems. Lamberg-Burnet is a firm believer that tomato sauce is to be avoided. It may be our national hero, but one Christmas Day, it is banned if we want people to think we’re flash.
The etiquette expert also stated that we should not take our drinks to the toilet with us and that we use linen napkins.
Similar to the decoration rules, the food rules illustrate that bogans are much more fun.
Lastly, we have the dos and don’t of gifts.
Lamberg-Burnet encourages people to give out gifts that you think they might use unless it’s a Lynx gift pack. That should never be encouraged.
Always thank the person who gave you the gift, which seems way less of a class thing, and much more of a decent human being thing to do.
When in doubt, potted plants are a great gift, which unless potted in a beer can, is pretty darn classy.
Whatever you are this Christmas, wear it proudly. Bogan or fancy pants, we all deserve a very merry Christmas!
