They wanted to take their baby son to the ocean for the first time.

Boxing Day sales are forecast to break records this year as shoppers shower themselves with gifts after the festive weekend.

Consumers are expected to spend a whopping $23.5 billion during the sales which is an increase of 7.9 per cent compared to last year, Australian Retailers Association data shows.

After COVID-19 plagued Christmas in 2021, many Aussies are set to head to restaurants, cafes and bars this year as hospitality venues are predicted to see a 30 per cent increase in sales.

READ MORE: What stores are open during the holiday period

Clothing sales will see double-digit growth with a predicted 11.4 per cent rise to nearly $2 billion while department store sales will surge by 8.9 per cent at more than $1 billion.

Australian Retailers Association CEO Paul Zahra said the Boxing Day sales are an important date in the retail calendar and 2022 will be no exception.

"It's clear to see Australian's love affair with shopping continues – shopping and dining -out remain some of our most beloved pass-times through the holiday season," he said.

The surge in spending is also attributed to inflationary pricing and "unseasonal weather", meaning the cold and wet temperatures Australia has seen for an unusual length of time, impacting the fashion industry.

READ MORE: What will the weather be like on Christmas Day?

After splurging on Christmas presents, experts say the Boxing Day sales will be a time when Australians spend on themselves.

"Post-Christmas Australians typically turn their minds to purchases for themselves and their household," Zahra said.

"It's been a tough year for many, and this year we are seeing what we are calling 'freedom' spending, where people reward themselves after an intense and challenging period.

"The rush to get out and indulge the senses – eat drink and be merry – remains a constant through this holiday period as Australians recover their post-pandemic mojo."

The Black Friday sales might have seen huge numbers of people cashing in on the discounts but the Boxing Day sales are predicted to eclipse it by 15 per cent.

"As interest rates continue to climb shoppers will be focused on seeking out the best deals post-Christmas," Jo Gaines from Salesforce said.

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In a state and territory breakdown of the biggest Boxing Day sales spenders, New South Wales takes the cake.

Post-Christmas sales in the state are forecast to jump by 9.5 per cent compared to last year.

Victoria is a close second rising by 8.2 per cent while Queensland will record 7.1 per cent more sales.

Winter weather is continuing to disrupt holiday travel across the United States, leaving travellers facing delays and cancellations during one of the busiest times of the year.

More than 4600 flights have already been cancelled after nearly 2700 cancellations yesterday, according to flight tracking site FlightAware.

Thursday's cancellations represented about 11 per cent of US-based carriers' scheduled flights, according to FlightAware, with nearly half of flights delayed on Thursday.

READ MORE: Energy market to give Australians a Christmas present no one wants

Cancellations are highest Friday at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, New York's LaGuardia and in Chicago, according to FlightAware data.

In addition to the cancellations, there had been about 6400 delays among the flights still going out.

For Saturday, almost 400 flights have already been cancelled.

Slammed by wind-whipped snow. Buffalo Niagara International Airport in New York had to shut down flights entirely.

"The Buffalo Airport Airfield has closed due to hazardous weather conditions," and all flights scheduled for the evening have been cancelled, according to a tweet from the airport's official Twitter account.

Ground stops

The Federal Aviation Administration posted ground stops Friday morning for flights bound for Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina, American Airlines' second-largest hub, and Reagan National Airport near Washington, DC, because of deicing.

In the Pacific Northwest, FAA notices showed flights bound to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and Portland International Airport were also under ground stops Friday morning because of snow and ice.

The FAA says the major air pressure changes associated with this storm will trigger high winds at airports from Boston down to Atlanta.

Airports in Chicago and Denver saw the bulk of cancellations and delays on Thursday. Chicago O'Hare International Airport was logging average delays Thursday of almost three hours due to snow and ice.

Storm has bad timing

An arctic blast and a rapidly intensifying winter storm have come at an unfortunate time for travellers trying to join family and friends for the holidays.

Airlines have issued winter weather waivers allowing passengers to rebook at no cost within a limited time period.

READ MORE: Three dead, three injured after gunman opens fire in central Paris

The growing cancellations make it harder for passengers racing against the clock and weather to rebook and arrive in time for Christmas. Flights this year were already more crowded than they've been previously – even before the storm disrupted travel schedules.

"We hear about how travel volume is still down, 5 or 10 per cent, but what many folks might not have realized is that the number of flights in the sky is actually down more like 15 or 20 per cent," Scott Keyes of Scott's Cheap Flights told CNN.

"The planes that are actually flying are more full today than they were pre-pandemic. That's why there's not as many empty seats to switch onto if you do find your flight gets canceled or delayed," Keyes said.

The storm is expected to intensify as it barrels through the Midwest and East and is making for grim road conditions with poor visibility and ice-covered streets.

A handful of deaths have already been reported. In north-central Kansas, three people were killed in separate car crashes on Wednesday evening; one death was confirmed to be weather-related, and two were believed to be weather-related but need more investigation, according to Kansas Highway Patrol spokesperson Lt. Candice Breshears.

And in Kentucky, three people died due to the storm, including two in vehicle crashes and the other a "housing insecure" person in Louisville, Governor Andy Beshear said.

The life-threatening cold has pushed all the way to the Gulf Coast and the Mexican border, with below-zero wind chills reported as far south as Austin and Atlanta.

The forecast calls for near-record low temperatures for Christmas Eve on Saturday in cities including Washington DC and Atlanta and parts of Florida.

Major power outages across the US

Damaging winds behind the front have knocked out power to about 1.5 million customers, with outages stretching from Texas across to New England, according to the website PowerOutage.US.

Most significantly, North Carolina had over 180,000 customers without power, while Virginia, Tennessee, Maine and New York each had over 100,000 customers without power, the site said.

In all, more than 200 million people in the US were under wind chill alerts from the Canadian border to the Mexican border and from Washington state to Florida, with below-zero wind chills expected in the Southeast by Friday.

READ MORE: Australian Federal Police close to 'cracking' a Christmas mystery

Other winter weather alerts are in effect for blizzard conditions, ice, snow as well as flooding.

"The National Weather Service's Watch Warning graphic depicts one of the greatest extents of winter weather warnings and advisories ever," the agency said Thursday.

Notably, parts of Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming have already seen wind chills below minus 10 degrees in the past two days.

"The ongoing major winter storm will continue to produce areas of heavy snow, strong winds, and life-threatening wind chills through Saturday. If traveling for the holiday, please use extreme caution and pay attention to the latest forecasts and updates," the National Weather Service said Thursday.

When teenage Brodie Kovalik complained of headaches, his mother Kelly, initially gave him painkillers.

But when they became more frequent and the 14-year-old schoolboy became nauseous, fatigued and withdrawn, she started to worry.

A blood test showed he was dehydrated but when he collapsed at school his father, Kelly's ex-husband, rushed him to hospital.

READ MORE: Parents diagnosed with cancer within hours of each other

After an eight-hour wait at Sydney's Campbelltown Hospital the family were given a shock diagnosis – Brodie had a brain tumour.

Kovalik, 37, was called by her ex-husband with the devastating news.

"I just collapsed on the floor," she said.

Just hours later Brodie was taken into surgery at Sydney Children's Hospital in Randwick

He had medulloblastoma, a tumour at the base of his brain.

It is most commonly found in children and grows in the part of the brain that controls movement and coordination.

Mammoth lifesaving-surgery

Surgeons managed to remove some of the tumour, which was the size of an orange, in a mammoth 11-hour surgery to save Brodie's life.

But sadly because of where the tumour was, Brodie was left unable to talk or walk.

READ MORE: Little boy who lost leg to rare cancer dies

"He could only respond with his index finger," Kovalik said.

"It affected all verbal and motor skills, but without the surgery it (the tumour) would have just consumed him."

While he is now able to say a few words and take a few steps, Brodie still uses a wheelchair.

It's a far cry from when he was a teen who loved playing Fortnite and chatting to his girlfriend on his phone.

"It's almost like there's a six-year-old trapped in a 14-year-old's body," Kovalik said.

Hospital far from home

Kovalik and her family had another problem when he was admitted to hospital.

Just weeks before she had moved with Brodie and his brothers Cooper, 16, Tyler 21, from Sydney's Inner West to Tallong, near Goulbourn, almost two hours away.

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It means it's impossible for her to go home at night.

Charity Ronald McDonald House stepped in.

It offers free accommodation to families close to hospitals.

Kovalik has been staying at the Randwick location for five months and will even celebrate Christmas there.

While Brodie should be well enough to leave hospital and visit his father on Christmas morning, he'll be with his mother at the House in the evening.

Mrs Kovalik called it a "home from home".

READ MORE: Number of contaminated spinach cases rises as recall expands

"It feels like I'm spending Christmas with the family," she said.

"We wouldn't have had the strength and mentality to carry on without them. I would be lost."

Set up over 40 years ago there are 18 Ronald McDonald Houses in Australia.

Actress Eva Mendes recently visited Australia to promote the charity.

The outlook for Brodie, who has more chemotherapy on December 30 is uncertain, but the family is staying positive.

"He's going to need assisted care for the rest of his life and we don't know how long that life is," Kovalik said.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/ClFplP6LgbN/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp

READ MORE: Shocking find inside teenage boy's gut discovered by doctors

What is Medulloblastoma

Medulloblastoma is the most common brain tumour in children.

It grows in at the back of the brain that controls movement and coordination.

Symptoms include vomiting, headaches and clumsiness.

Treatments include surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

About 100 children aged up to 14 are diagnosed with a brain or spinal cord tumour annually, Cancer Council NSW, says.

Find out more about the Ronald McDonald House Christmas fundraising campaign here.

Do you have a story? Contact journalist Sarah Swain on ss****@******om.au

Some brands have become so popular their names are ubiquitous in our lives. But there's interesting stories behind how they got their names.

The sending of Christmas cards may be a dying tradition, but more than 90 years ago, in 1931, an historic delivery brought festive delight to thousands of Brits for the first time – all the way from Australia.

Aussie aviation legend Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, braved everything from a blizzard and carbon monoxide poisoning to deliver the special bags of Christmas letters sent from Melbourne after a plane crash scuppered an earlier attempt.

"Without the luxury of modern communication that we enjoy today, for many this would have been the only way of communicating with friends and family," Australia Post's executive general manager of deliveries Rod Barnes told 9news.com.au.

A joyful picture shows the heroic aviator with his flying goggles still on his head, holding a bag containing some of the 52,000 well-wishes from Melbourne on December 16.

READ MORE: The devastating natural disaster that's going to get more intense

Back then, mail took weeks to arrive by ship.

But Kingsford Smith – a heroic former Army and Flying corps pilot – became involved with experimental airmail flights to England after plans were made to extend the service to Australia.

The trial flights were fraught with mishaps, with the first one crashing en route.

A second successful second test flight, partly flown by Kingsford Smith, was so successful, the post office in Darwin almost ran out of stamps, newspapers reported.

READ MORE: A guide to train and road delays in Melbourne over summer

Special festive delivery trip

A third trial trip was planned – just in time for Christmas.

It cost one shilling (10c) per half ounce (14g) plus the ordinary surface postage of two pence per one ounce, to post a letter.

Kingsford Smith hoped the venture would lead to a fortnightly service, connecting the two nations by air post for the first time.

The Christmas cards and letters bound for the UK left Melbourne on November 20 in an Avro Ten plane called Southern Sun, piloted by GU "Scotty" Allan.

But the flight never made it to London.

The plane sunk in a rice field after hitting an "extremely glutenous patch of mud" on an airfield in Malaysia during one of multiple refuelling stops, newspapers reported.

READ MORE: Easy tips to save thousands as cost-of-living crisis deepens

Everyone on board survived the crash – as did the mail.

But the festive deliveries were stranded in a damp tropical field, with Christmas fast approaching.

So, the adventurous Kingsford Smith set out to save it, and deliver the Christmas joy.

Smithy to the rescue

Kingsford Smith – warmly known as Smithy – left Australia on 30 November to rescue the stranded mail in a sister plane of the Avro 10 that crashed, called Southern Star.

The Australian Post Office helped pay for the mission, with the flight reported to cost £2000.

According to the Reserve Bank of Australia, that's worth approximately $195,000 in modern currency when accounting for inflation.

But it was quite a journey, with more than a dozen stops as planes could not get far without refuelling back then.

READ MORE: Why sailors will always fear the legendary rogue wave

Kingsford Smith had to contend with delays due to fog, a blizzard in Italy, and carbon monoxide poisoning.

He even had to get a push from bystanders to take off from Le Touquet, just over the English Channel in France, papers reported.

The famous pilot – well known for setting records for the first trans-Australian, trans-Tasman and trans-Pacific flights – made the risky decision to ditch his wireless navigator along the way to lighten the weight.

But he made it, safely delivering the first Christmas airmail sent from Australia to England on 16 December.

"I am proud of bringing the first direct air mail to England, and I hope it will be the forerunner of a regular service from' Australia," Kingsford Smith said at the time.

Barnes said airmail is now carried from the UK to Australia on aircraft that take less than 24 hours. 

"So it's quite remarkable that in 1931 Charles Kingsford Smith flew for over two weeks to deliver Christmas mail from the UK to Sydney, encountering countless risks and adversity on the way," Barnes added.

READ MORE: Stowaway attempts that didn't end in tragedy

Return mission to Australia

But Kingsford Smith's journey was not done there. He had to repeat the trip in reverse to carry all the Christmas mail gathered in England for Aussies.

And that wasn't an easy feat either.

Kingsford Smith's flight was scheduled to leave London on 22 December – already too late for Christmas deliveries.

But mishaps caused a further delay until 7 January 1932.

He didn't reach Sydney until January 21 – but those letters were finally handed out to their recipients.

The Australian War Memorial has one of them.

Robyn van Dyk, head of the museum's research centre, said the recipients would have been astonished.

"It would have been so exciting to get a Christmas letter via the air," she told 9news.com.au.

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Sadly, the series of mishaps ended Kingsford Smith's hopes of his company taking on the official airmail service.

It would be a few more years before international air mail got off the ground.

In December, 1934, Qantas – which was founded in 1920 – started the Australia to Singapore mail leg and Imperial Airways flew letters on to England.

Mail from Australia to London now took 13 days by air, instead of 32 days by sea.

Tragic end to pioneering life

A few years after his festive feat, on 8 November 1935, Kingsford Smith, 38, and co-pilot Tommy Pethybridge set out on another world record attempt, to make the fastest flight from England to Australia.

But their plane, Lady Southern Cross crashed off the coast of Burma, while flying at night, bound for Singapore.

Locals were offered rewards for any information on the missing heroes.

But their bodies were never found.

A year and a half later, an undercarriage leg and wheel from their plane, was discovered by fishermen.

That is now on show at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.

Experts figured out the plane had probably come to rest 27m down on the bottom of the sea, off the coast of Aye Island.

In 2009 filmmaker Filmmaker Damien Lay reckoned he'd found it on sonar, but it has never been recovered.

Smith left behind his son, Charles Jnr, and wife, Mary, Lady Kingsford Smith.

He remains one of Australia's most renowned heroes.

Sydney's Charles Kingsford Smith Airport was named in his honour, and he was featured on the nation's $20 note for years in tribute to his pioneering ventures.

Suburbs and street names across the nation take his name.

Fittingly, Kingsford Smith's achievements were commemorated on stamps issued in 1931 by the Australian Post Office.

He was knighted the following year.

His plane, Southern Cross, is on display at Brisbane Airport.

Do you have a story? Contact journalist Sarah Swain: ss****@******om.au

Picture this: it's the peak of summer. Temperatures across Australia have finally warmed up, and people around the country are reaching for their fans and air conditioners – only to be stymied by the threat of rolling blackouts.

It might seem unlikely, but according to one energy and environmental economics expert, it's a genuine threat.

"I think we're more than likely going to have a repeat of June," Liam Wagner, associate professor at the Centre for Food and Resources at Adelaide Univesity, told 9news.com.au.

READ MORE: What is fusion and why could it be a clean-energy breakthrough?

"And I think it's going to be potentially even worse in January, February when the weather really kicks up."

The part of June Wagner is referring to is when the east coast was hit by power shortages, and the widespread blackouts residents were warned of were only averted when the energy regulator (the Australian Energy Market Operator, or AEMO) intervened.

"The guys at AEMO will be pretty stressed out in January," he said.

"And all the distribution network system operators are going to be doing rolling blackouts if it gets bad."

READ MORE: Food to remain expensive in 2023 – but good news for coffee drinkers

Wagner said we've been lucky to avoid similar scenarios so far this summer, as La Nina and other major climate drivers bring unseasonably cold temperatures. But that luck won't last forever.

"Because of unusually low temperatures, we may see a drop in the expected demand for this coming summer," he said.

"But only if we're lucky…

"The network was under a considerable amount of stress earlier in the year at the peak of winter. At the peak of summer, I think we could be in serious Flash Gordon trouble."

What's going to happen to energy bills in 2023?

If you're hoping for some cheaper power bills for Christmas this year, look away now.

Australians have been hit by rising energy prices for some time, but Wagner warns there's no end in sight.

"Prices are going to rise. And I think that they could rise quite significantly," Wagner said.

He estimates that, by this time next year, Australians will be paying an extra 10 to 20 per cent on their power bills, even if the growth in prices in the new year is only gradual to begin with.

Wagner says the increases are due to an energy system that relies on outdated coal-fired generators due to a policy vacuum in recent times.

READ MORE: NSW parents given $150 'back to school' vouchers in cost of living boost

"A majority of (coal-fired generators) are far too old to be operating," he said.

"But they are continuing to operate because we haven't had an energy policy in Australia that's conducive to replacing their capacity with something else.

"And as a consequence, we've got these old buckets of rust that are online, and at any given moment, they could go off."

The federal government recently announced a $1.5 billion package to cap energy prices and reduce bills, which will, in Wagner's words, "calm down prices on the wholesale market".

But he said more needs to be done, including adding more renewable energy to the grid.

"You would see a significant drop in price on the wholesale market (by) injecting more renewables into the grid," he said.

READ MORE: Shortage of these key tradies threatens Australia's green energy push

"It's not happening quickly enough. It should have happened 15 years ago. I've been shouting at the top of my lungs, I've been blue in the face for the last 15 years."

With the current system, Australians aren't likely to see cheaper power anytime even in the next two or three years.

"A real decrease (which takes inflation into account) is pretty unlikely for a few more years yet," he said.

"I think that if all governments move quickly enough, we will see a tapering off in growth and prices, but I still think it'd be a growth in prices.

"Unless, of course, they want to elbow deep into it and regulate price."

That would be a significant step – albeit something that's already done in some parts of the country, like North Queensland – but one Wagner says the current circumstances call for.

"Prices are escalating quickly. And, of course, it's a significant cost-of-living pressure. We're there now," he said.

"It's just whether the federal government and the state governments have the courage to do it."

The late-night ruling has granted a stay of proceedings.

Motorists have been warned to expect delays from early afternoon.

Christmas travel plans have been thrown into chaos ahead of one of the busiest weekends of the year.

Wild weather and thick fog have caused international and domestic delays and flight diversions at Melbourne

Meanwhile, Queenslanders have been warned to plan ahead and allow for extra travel time due to significant construction on a number of busy roads.

READ MORE: What will the weather be like on Christmas Day?

Flights delayed in Melbourne

Multiple flights have been delayed in Melbourne this morning due to heavy fog and wild weather.

Melbourne Airport spokesperson Andrew Lund told 3AW that several flights were diverted to Sydney and Adelaide.

"There's been a lot of airborne holding, so circling if you like, for domestic flights coming into Melbourne just because with the fog so thick," he said.

"We can't get the same number of aircraft on the runways as we usually would."

READ MORE: Summer of traffic pain: A guide to train and road delays in Melbourne

Lund said the fog had slowed down operations "significantly".

"The fog is so thick we can't get the same number of aircraft on the runaway as we usually would," he said.

"The airlines will do everything they can do to get back on schedule, but the longer the fog hangs around, the more delays we are going to have.

"We are asking everyone to get to the airport early and be patient and arrive early." 

It comes after parts of the airport were flooded after the roof of Terminal 1 leaked due to the heavy rainfall yesterday.

READ MORE: Temperatures plummet as 'bomb cyclone' threatens US states

Queenslanders warned of traffic choas 

Roads across Queensland will be impacted by construction, while a post-COVID-19 travel boom will see thousands of families make their way across the border, opting to drive instead of paying for expensive flights.

Queensland locals are also set to hit the road, with the Pacific Motorway and Bruce Highway expected to be bumper-to-bumper by midday Friday.

This is the first Christmas without any COVID-19 restrictions Australia has seen in three years and extra police will be out in force with additional unmarked vehicles sent out.

Police have also warned while there will be a pause on existing roadworks on Queensland motorways, reduced speed fines will also be in effect.