The 8 Best Things To Do In Melbourne This December
Ring-a-ding-ding, ‘tis the season! Whether you’re looking for ways to celebrate Christmas, or ways to enjoy culture without turning into a mindless consumer zombie, Melbourne has you covered in December.
#1 The Big Design Market
The biggest, most bad-ass design market in Melbourne takes place in the Royal Exhibition Building from December 4-6. Two hundred and thirty designers from around Australia will have their hand-crafted wares on sale – all the quirky, beautiful, unique loveliness your little brain can handle. From delicate jewellery pieces to hats and homewares, to bike racks, duck feet and desert weavers, The Big Design Market has your Christmas shopping locked down.
#2 Makin’ bacon at Work-shop
Fitzroy’s Work-shop is a place where adults get to learn and play, following their curious noses down all manner of rabbit holes. This month, alongside Work-shops usual roster of terrarium making and calligraphy classes, you can learn to make a lamp from a block of wood, screenprint your own Christmas wrapping paper and learn how to cure your own meat.
#3 Awkward Christmas Portraits
Duck into Melbourne Central throughout December, don a not-Bill-Cosby sweater and a pair of horn rims and get ready to pose for an awesome Christmas portrait. Your mid-’80s American Christmas memories come complete with hearth, tree and pictures of fake snow. Santa hats and Rudolph noses will also be provided. It runs from December 1-20.
#4 An evening with Oprah
Santa Claus is coming to town! I mean Oprah! Oprah is coming to town! I WANT A FREE CAR. See the TV queen at the Rod Laver Arena on Wednesday December 2.
#5 Slide Melbourne
Strap on your budgie smugglers and make for the city because Melbourne is turning into a epic waterpark on Sunday December 6. Slide Melbourne is a one-day only installation that will see Lansdowne Street in the CBD transformed into a massive slip ‘n’ slide. Four hundred metres of wet, horizontal hilarity await you – the longest street water slide in the world! All you have to do is buy a ticket and hop on a tram in your bathers.
#6 Andy Warhol/Ai Weiwei
Two iconoclastic titans will face off in the blockbuster summer exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, which opens this month on December 11. The show includes 300 pieces of Warhol’s pop art and 120 works from Chinese provocateur Ai Weiwei, including a nine-metre high, 16-metre-wide installation made from 1500 bicycles. Weiwei will also present a work made from thousands of donated blocks of LEGO, which have been dropped off at the NGV by contemporary art fans. LEGO refused to sell Weiwei the blocks on the grounds that he made political art so Weiwei’s fans came to the rescue. How cool is that?
#7 Lido Rooftop Cinema
Recently opened in Hawthorn, the Lido Cinemas are a high-class affair, a self-described “artiplex” for serious cinefiles that happens to be fully licensed. Just launched, the Lido now offers a rooftop cinema experience, 100 seats and top quality projections on a historic roof overlooking Glenferrie Road. Films presented under the stars this December include Stephen Frears’ Lance Armstrong biopic, The Program and a week-long season of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
#8 A Dick Diver Christmas
The laconic lords of dolewave want to celebrate the silly season with you. Welcoming orphans, beer-drinkers and other people who prefer live music to late night shopping, Dick Diver are doing not one but two shows at the Tote this month. Get along on either Christmas Eve or Boxing Day to hear tracks from their stellar 2015 album Melbourne, Florida, and consider that live music is all the family you’ll ever need.
(Lead image: Lido Cinemas/Facebook)
