10 Fun Ideas to Celebrate Australia Day!

January brings with it many things, a new year, fresh mindsets, new goals, and plenty of celebrations to be had, and Australia Day is here to end the month with a bang for 2023! Australia Day marks the day of Arthur Phillip’s foundation and landing of the First Fleet that sailed into Sydney Cove, creating the first European Settlement on the great continent of Australia on January 26th, 1788. Within the early period of the 1800s, this date was known as ‘Foundation Day’, hosted, and celebrated by Politicians and the businessmen of New South Wales privately. It would not be until the 50th Anniversary of the settlement that the day would receive its first public celebration in 1838, 100 years more in 1938 until the date was an official holiday for Australians, and another 50 years from that in 1988 until the date became a national public holiday!

The date is incredibly important for Australian people with an overwhelming amount of history to be learned and remembered from its place within time, just as important as it is to be celebrated amongst your family and friends! With the world celebrating alongside Australia, we’re here to present you with 10 incredible ways to celebrate Australia Day to send January off with a bang to end the first month of your year in an Aussie way! Pull up your cork hats, Australian flags, and get your sunglasses on for the worldwide national celebration of Australia Day!

Nothing quite captures the essence of Australia’s relaxed and carefree lifestyle than cracking open a cold one and enjoying the heat of the sun grilling some delicious meals! The best part of a Barbeque is how hostable and easy it is to set up to enjoy anywhere. Pull up a barbeque in your backyard, a park or a field, and bang on some chicken wings, burger patties, sizzling sausages, or any vegan food to kickstart your afternoons and end the night full in the company of others! Food brings people together and what better way to enjoy an experience such as this than celebrating Australia Day!

A way to involve everyone regardless of your age is a classic and festive game of Pin the Tail on the Kangaroo for Australia Day! To play, get yourself an image of a Kangaroo and stick or pin it up on a wall or board, have some cut-outs of Kangaroo tails however you’d like to create them, blindfold the player, and spin them round and round 10 times and let them try to pin the tail on the Kangaroo! Whoever pins the tail at the right spot or closest to the right spot wins!

Much like barbeques, the magic of food brings everyone together! You can enjoy these traditional Australian cuisines, whether basking under the sun or enjoying your day inside to cool off! Expand your tastes and flavours for the day and try your hand at some classic Lamingtons, iconic Vegemite on toast (or Avocados), Bacon Egg Rolls, famous Aussie Meat Pies, Fairy Bread, Lamb Leg Roasts and more! Australians have a plethora of incredible food and cuisines to try and to expand your food palette with this year!

Cricket being the traditional sport that’s enjoyed all over the world, is beloved just as much by Australia! Playing Cricket in celebration of Australia Day can be made accessible for anybody to partake in and enjoy regardless of age is a fantastic way to relish in the day, you can even play in your backyard or your local park! Footie is even easier to set up (not to be confused with ‘British Football’), all you need is a ball and you’re ready to go! There’s always fun to be had playing sports together with family and friends for Australia Day!

Scavenger Hunts are a brilliant way to get all ages involved, especially kids, encouraging children and adults to learn the history of why Australia Day is celebrated and how we do so! Simply by choosing a location for your scavenger hunt to take place and listing items with clues for things to gather, whether they be objects you have created and prepared for everyone to collect or pieces that can be found naturally within the area, it will be a great way to teach children and adults about animals and trivia pieces on Australia’s History!

Not as crude as you’d initially think from the title, Aussies compete in a minigame where they see how far they can throw their Flipflops (Thongs) backhanded, over-head, or boomerang style for a competition! A fun little event that everyone can participate in and a great game for the youngsters for school days, all you need is a wide-open space and a few pairs of flip-flops, and you got yourself a competition brewing up waiting to begin!

No Australia Day can be celebrated without the iconic flags blowing in the breeze, get into the feel of the day by decorating your house or your event area with some large Australian Flags, Buntings, inflatables, and anything else you think will suit the theme of Australia Day! If you’re stumped for choice or not sure what you need, take a look at our Australia Day category on Cazaar so we can get your celebrations started the right way!

Another great way to get everyone involved is by setting up Australia Day-themed Quizzes for everyone to join in and play along, creating questions about general Australian knowledge and historical quizzing on facts about Australia Day! On top of this, encouraging your kids to do word searches based on Australian-themed words is a fantastic way to broaden your children’s knowledge of Australia’s culture and history!

At the end of a long day of celebrating it’s nice to unwind and kick back with a drink and watch all of the incredible fireworks displays that most areas of the world will be parading with celebration, whether you’re down by the seaside watching the display or in the backyard to enjoy the spectacle with friends and the family you’ve enjoyed the day of celebration with, sending off the end of January and this historic day with a bang!

And lastly, the best part of celebrating anything is dressing for the occasion, especially for Australian Day! You can veil yourself in an Australian Flag Cape, keeping yourself cooled under the sun and the flies away with an Australian Cork Hat, an inflatable Kangaroo to carry with you or Kangaroo Hats, Beer Can costumes of Australia’s most beloved beverages, you name it! All of this is available and more on Cazaar’s marketplace for you to kick the day off and leave you with a plentiful hand of activities to spend your Australia Day having fun with friends and family together!