By Derek Schlennstedt
It’s as much a local Christmas tradition as Christmas Carols or CFA Santa Clause, and once again Federal Casey MP Tony Smith has unveiled another fantastic design to feature on his Christmas cards.
Students at Coldstream were ecstatic to hear earlier in the year that they were chosen as the school to design the Christmas Cards and after the whole school got involved several finalists were chosen.
Though it was Grade 5 student Josie Dickson whose Aussie-centric design was chosen to adorn the card and be sent around the country.
With kangaroos pulling Santa’s sleigh and Santa sitting atop Uluru, Josie said she wanted to make sure her card was ‘Aussie.’
“I wanted to try to make it Aussie and so I had the idea to include Uluru” she said.
Though, it wasn’t easy creating the drawing, and she admits her first design didn’t work out too well.
“The first one I did didn’t really work because the kangaroos looked odd.”
Mr Smith said although “it was a tough job” choosing a winner from the finalists “as they were all very good”, Josie’s was chosen as it had a “good mix of Australia and Christmas and the humour and the level of detail was very good”.
Josie’s was one of several great designs with the finalists also being featured on the back of the card.
Mr Smith said Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was very pleased to receive his wonderful Christmas card all the way from Coldstream, Victoria.
That’s a prestigious nod for a Grade 5 student who has always dreamt of becoming an artist.
“I was really excited because I always wanted to be an artist,” said Josie, when seeing the photograph of the Prime Minister with her card.
