Podcast 71 - B1/B2 An English Christmas

Andalusian white village

Useful vocabulary about Christmas

Hello, and welcome back to Practicing English. And today it's the 21st of December. And we're getting close to Christmas Day. So I thought it would be nice to talk about Christmas and give you some relevant vocabulary for talking about the different things that we do at Christmas and the traditions.

This is definitely an English Christmas that I'm talking about. English or British and not American, which is probably somewhat different from the way that the English or British celebrate their Christmas. So I think I'll be making, really, references to my own childhood. Because now I live in Spain. And my Christmases are a little bit different. Even though I've tried to mirror the way we celebrated Christmas back in the UK.

So I think probably the first thing I could talk about is Christmas shopping. The time we all went to a big city near where we lived, which was Gloucester or Swindon, which are cities in the west of England. And we would go there for Christmas shopping. And that was done in much secrecy. And we would buy our presents and hide them in bags. And then when we all got home, then we would wrap up our presents in wrapping paper. And then the presents would go under the Christmas tree. We used to put up the Christmas tree, well, a long time before, maybe a week or two weeks before Christmas. And that would be the place where we would put the Christmas presents with a little name tag on each one, so when we gave out the presents on Christmas Day, everybody would know whose present was whose or which present belonged to which person.

Christmas Eve

Before talking about Christmas Day, though, I'm going to talk about Christmas Eve, which is the 24th of December, which is not such an important day as it is in some European countries. So Christmas Eve was the day when people would arrive at our home - I'm referring to aunts and uncles perhaps, or my brothers and sisters when they were older and lived in other parts of the UK. And it was the day of people turning up then with their suitcases and taking their cases upstairs and then taking the presents out of the suitcases and putting them under the tree.

So there was much excitement about that - anticipation of Christmas Day. The meal on Christmas Eve would be quite simple, really. In fact, I don't even remember what we would have on a Christmas Eve evening. I don't remember what ate, but it was something quite simple - it might be... I really don't know, I really don't remember. But there's nothing traditional really about a Christmas Eve meal. What we might do, actually, on Christmas Eve would be to sing Christmas carols. And those are the typical Christmas songs that you may have heard because they have become quite international, especially here in Spain. I hear them on the radio and in supermarkets, for example. Even though they're not Spanish at all, songs like Away in a manger, [sings] and Silent Night [sings: silent night, Holy night]. And what else was there? [sings: Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the feast of Steven, where the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even.] And another favourite was While shepherds watched, [sings: while Shepherds watched their flocks by night, all seated on the ground]. Anyway, so much for the Christmas carols!

Christmas decorations

I would also like to talk about something important, which was decorating the house. And that's the verb we use - to decorate or put up the Christmas decorations. The Christmas decorations would be what we put on the tree as well. For example, baubles, which are those round glass or plastic balls of different colours that you put on the tree, and you hang them on the tree. The tinsel, which are long, silvery, or gold-coloured strips of aluminum paper, which you'd hang from the tree. And of course, the Christmas tree lights, or the fairy lights, as they were called which would wrap around the tree. And they would flash on and off.

Then also we would have Christmas decorations around the house as well. Especially branches of berries that we collected, or that we picked or got from the countryside. And we brought them in, and we'd put them up around different places in the house. For example, holly, which is a plant - which is very typical at Christmas, it has dark green spiky leaves, and red berries, and that's called holly. And that was a very traditional and very significant plant that we used to decorate the house with at Christmas time. And there was another one as well, which is mistletoe (look for the spelling in the audio script, which I'll include with this), which is a plant with small green leaves, and white berries. It is traditional, for example, where the mistletoe is hung above the door, people would kiss under the mistletoe - people in love, for example.

The Christmas stocking

The final thing that was done on Christmas Eve, for the children especially, was to put up the Christmas stocking. The Christmas stocking... well, it used to be a stocking years ago, which is an article of clothing that women wear - and we used to have one, actually. And then later on, you could actually buy them in shops, special decorated stockings or socks. The idea is that when Father Christmas comes, then he'll put something in your stocking for you on the night of Christmas Eve.

And just a little bit about Father Christmas. I always think of Father Christmas as being a figure like St. Nicholas, who is celebrated in some countries, like France, I believe. And his day is actually on the sixth of December. He was a saint who gave out presents to small children - at Christmas time. We often associate a Father Christmas with that figure - with Saint Nicholas. We didn't call him Santa Claus, which is more of an American term. And the idea of the red coat or red and white coat, which was, in fact, designed by the marketing team from Coca Cola many years ago. So that makes Santa Claus very commercial, doesn't it, really? But we think of him more, in the UK, as somebody who goes way, way back in history and somebody like St. Nicholas.

That would be Christmas Eve. We'd all go to bed. Oh, yes! Those who wanted to go to church, would go to church at 12 o'clock and that was called Midnight Mass and that would be the celebration of the coming of Christmas Day at 12 o'clock midnight, in the local church. Some of us would go to the church on Christmas Eve - of course, the children wouldn't, they would be in bed.

Christmas Day

So, on Christmas morning, there would be a lot of excitement from the children who would get up much, much too early, far too early, because they were so excited. Because in our house, we used to have the Christmas stocking at the end of our bed - it would be hung at the end of the bed. When you would wake up in the morning, as a child, you would look eagerly to the Christmas stocking and see it bulging with something or things inside it.

So we would get up. And I can remember with the Christmas stocking, taking it with my brothers and sisters into my mum and dad's room and opening the stocking there at six o'clock in the morning! And what did we have in the stocking? Well, it was usually more or less the same thing. Things like notebooks and pens and pencils for school, small things, usually a toothbrush - there would always be a new toothbrush, little puzzles, wooden puzzles, or things like that - quite small presents. At the bottom, in the toe of the stocking, there would always be a tangerine, like a small orange. And that was a very exciting time, I can remember. The gifts or presents in the stocking weren't our main presents. That would come later in the day.

So breakfast was usually quite an informal affair, really, it was just cereals and toast and coffee. And people would get their breakfast in our house. I can remember the aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters. People [would] get up at different times. And it was quite an informal sort of meal that breakfast. And then after that, we would usually go for a walk. It depended on the weather, whether we had a white Christmas or not, whether it was snowing outside - sometimes it was. But I think recently, the white Christmases are more and more rare because of climate change. We don't see so much snow now in England at that time of year. But anyway, we would go out for a walk usually, maybe a group of us would go for a walk because we lived in a village, we had the countryside right next to us. And we would go out for a lovely walk with the dog - with a dog, I can remember.

Christmas lunch

Then we would come back and there will be preparations for the big meal itself the big Christmas meal, which was Christmas lunch. And that was the main meal of Christmas time when we would sit down at a table all of us together and share a lunch together. It was always turkey, roast turkey. And it would be stuffed, as we call it. It had stuffing - that is a substance that you put inside the turkey, of sage and onion. So onion is a vegetable, sage is quite a strong smelling, tasting herb, which is mixed with it. And it's quite delicious, really. And that was placed inside the turkey and then served with the turkey when it was carved and shared out among the family. And other things for lunch would be roast potatoes, which are potatoes done in the oven, and carrots and cabbage, parsnips and a variety of different types of vegetables like that. And it would always be my father who carved the turkey - to cut the turkey with a very sharp knife and give out slices of turkey on each plate for everybody.

So that was Christmas lunch. And then after that the plates would be taken away into the kitchen. And it would be the time for the Christmas pudding. And the Christmas pudding was something that everybody looked forward to. Christmas pudding is something we have only once a year - on Christmas Day. It was round like a ball about the size of a football in shape, or the size of a cannonball, and it was black. It had a lot of spices in it, dried fruit. It was very, very rich as we say, which means that you can only eat a small bit, it was so filling, but very delicious. And it would also have a lot of brandy in it. And I can remember my mother coming in. And the tradition is, as she walked in the room with the Christmas pudding on the plate, it would have a flame on top, which was really just rum, which was sprinkled on the top of the Christmas pudding, and it would be burning and there would be a flame there. And you'd come in with this flaming Christmas pudding. Inside the flames would be a sprig of holly, which is a small twig of the holly bush stuck in the top of the Christmas pudding. And that was something which everybody looked forward to what a wonder that was - the Christmas pudding.

And then, finally, after that the all the plates had been put away and washed up, well, then we'd all sit down, and we would give out our presents. And that was done usually, one at a time, from the youngest members of the family, the children would give out a present, one at a time, to each person so they could open it and appreciate it and say something about it - some comment. And then the child would go and look for another present underneath the Christmas tree. And that was an event which took, maybe, a couple of hours. Because it took so long. Everybody receiving their present one by one. Well, then Christmas Day, drew to a close.

We would have some tea later on around about six or seven o'clock. And there would be a Christmas cake - cake which was very dark as well, a bit like the Christmas pudding in a way, but with white icing on it, and usually again with a sprig of holly, and people be so full up anyway, from the Christmas lunch that they wouldn't want any more. And that was our Christmas.

Christmas is over

In the UK. The only other holiday is the bank holiday after Christmas, which is called Boxing Day. Family and relations would stay perhaps overnight - until Boxing Day, when everybody would then start to go home, they would make their way home on Boxing Day afternoon. And that really was the end of Christmas. There wasn't really much more to Christmas. The idea of celebrating the 12 days of Christmas that happen in Spain, for example, with the three kings is just not something which is tradition in the UK. So you will find, if you ever go to England at Christmas time, that after Boxing Day, Christmas has sort of finished and the sales come on in the big department stores - after Boxing Day it's all finished. Christmas is over.

And that's the end of my little talk about Christmas and I just would like to wish you all, the listeners to Practising English, a very merry Christmas and a very peaceful and joyous New Year! Bye bye!