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Hello. Today I want to start this podcast with some words of thanks. I have just got the figures from Spotify on the numbers of listeners who regularly follow Practising English. There are other apps, of course but over 80% of listeners are from Spotify. The new figures for 2023 are that now this podcast has over 400.000 listeners. 19.8 thousand consider Practising English to be their number one podcast and for 100.000 listeners Practising English is in their top ten best podcasts. I'm really pleased that so many learners of English around the world are enjoying and learning from Practising English. And the list is very international.
Spain is the country which has the highest number of listeners with 11%, and then Turkey, Italy, Poland, Brazil... However, there are listeners in all five continents, especially Asia and South America. I'm so happy that my podcast channel has reached so many homes right across the world. I'd like to say a big thank you to all of you. Your interest inspires me to continue. Thank you.
This week, I should have published part 2 of my story Never go Back. I think I made a mistake with the programming. If I publish that now, it means my Christmas podcast is going to be a suspense horror and not suitable for Christmas. That means, I'm going to delay part 2 of Never go Back to the first week of January and for this week I'm going to offer you something more Christmassy, we say. Something more Christmassy. Note that I'm not going to spell any words to you today, because you can follow this podcast with a transcript of all the text at Practising English dot com, podcast 176. See the link to that page in my show notes. So here we go...
As a child, I used to look forward to Christmas time in England. I have two brothers and two sisters, so Christmas was a time we all spent together. Even when we were older, we would travel in to our parents' home in Gloucestershire, to be together at Christmas.
My father, especially, promoted a traditional Christmas in our family. What did that mean? Well, a Christmas tree in the living-room, decorated with tiny electric lights, baubles (those round glass or plastic balls that hang from the tree) and tinsel, silver-coloured strings that cover the tree to make it look pretty. Little branches of holly (a tree with red berries), ivy and even mistletoe (a plant with white berries) - that's the one you are meant to kiss under, were attached to the walls around the house. We would put the presents under the tree, which would be handed out, one at a time, to all the members of the family - always after Christmas lunch.
The main Christmas meal is Christmas lunch on Christmas Day - the 25th of December. Unlike many European countries, the 24th of December (Christmas Eve), was not a day to eat anything special. It's a day when family members arrive at the house for the following festivities. So Christmas lunch - what did we have? You probably can guess as they are things we see quite frequently in British or American films. Turkey is the main dish, often a huge one to be served to so many people, such as there were in my family. That's the big ugly bird that makes a sound like (imitates a turkey). To accompany the turkey, we have roast potatoes, Brussels sprouts, turnips, carrots, etc. My father was always at the head of the table and he would be the one to carve or cut the turkey into small pieces for each member of the family.
Finally, the Christmas pudding, a delicious almost black sweet food made of dried fruit, almonds, peel, flour and breadcrumbs. You might need a dictionary to look some of those ingredients up.
On the night of the 24th, Christmas Eve, is when Father Christmas would come and leave presents in large socks or stockings hung up over the fireplace or on the corner of the bed. Notice I say Father Christmas, and not Santa Claus, which is the American version. Our version is more similar to Saint Nicholas, for instance, a saint who gave out presents to little children.
Interestingly, this traditional style of Christmas was made popular by the English writer Charles Dickens, in a book that he wrote called A Christmas Carol. Again, I imagine you will know it, as the story is popular in many languages and Hollywood (again) has taken the theme and made films of the story.
In this particular book, we can read about many of the traditions I have just mentioned. In reality, it is thought that families during the nineteenth century industrial London of Charles Dickens' time, had to work hard, long hours with little time for leisure and celebration. On the other hand, Dickens himself said this about Christmas in the 1840's. The quote is complete - so you might need a dictionary for some words:
"[Christmas was] a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of other people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."
Perhaps from the influence of Dickens, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert introduced the first Christmas tree into Windsor Castle (or was that because Prince Albert was German - and the tree came from Germany?) Anyway, the first Christmas card appeared in the 1840s, which was around the time when A Christmas Carol was published in 1843. We can't say that Charles Dickens invented Christmas but we could say he re-invented it.
The reason I'm talking about Dickens so much is that I want to share with you another Christmas tradition in our family. After Christmas lunch, my father used to take down A Christmas Carol off the shelf and turn to a page, which he read aloud to us. You may remember that the main character in the story, Ebenezer Scrooge, was a man who loved money but wasn't keen on spending it. In his office, he had hired a clerk, Bob Cratchit, who he paid badly and forced to work long hours. Bob Cratchit had a wife and family of several children, and they lived happily but very, very poor. The youngest, a little boy called Tiny Tim, was handicapped and needed treatment if he was to survive, but with the miserable wages Scrooge paid him, that treatment was just not possible. In the story Scrooge is taken by the ghost of Christmas Present to watch the Cratchit family at their Christmas dinner. It is this moving scene that my father read to us every Christmas. I'd like to read it to you now - for the first time ever, adapted to B1-level English! Well, there are some of the original words there I have left for you to look up in a dictionary if necessary. There is a message there for all of us, whatever our religious beliefs - a human message of goodness and love.
There never had been a goose like that before. Bob said he didn't believe there had ever been such a cooked goose. It was so soft and had a delicious flavour. Its size and how cheap it was were the subjects everybody at the table talked about. In fact, the large quantity seemed more due to the apple sauce and mashed potatoes. Anyway, there was enough dinner for the whole family. As Mrs Cratchit said cheerfully (looking at the tiny amount of food left on the dish), they hadn't been able to eat it all! Yet everyone had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits, especially, were full up! But now, the plates were cleared away by Miss Belinda, the eldest daughter, and Mrs Cratchit left the room alone—too nervous to bring anybody with her—to take the pudding out, and bring it in.
Suppose it was not cooked enough! Suppose it broke into pieces when put onto the plate! Suppose somebody had got over the wall of the back garden and stolen it, while they were happily eating the goose—an event which made the two young Cratchits extremely frightened! They thought all sorts of terrible things could happen.
Ah! What a delicious smell! The pudding was out of the saucepan. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like a restaurant and a cake shop next door to each other. That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs Cratchit came in—a little red in the face, but smiling proudly—with the pudding, almost the size of a football, so hard and round, burning in lighted brandy, and on the top, a piece of Christmas holly.
Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he thought it was the greatest success achieved by Mrs Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs Cratchit said that, now she was feeling more relaxed about everything, she would admit she had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said it was a small pudding for such a large family. For any Cratchit, it would have been too much of an awful thing to say.
At last, the dinner was all finished, the tablecloth was cleared, the fireplace swept, and the fire lit. The contents in the jug being tasted and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put on the table, and chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family sat around the fireplace in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass. Two old glasses and a cup.
These held the hot liquid from the jug, however, as well as cups made of real gold would have done; and Bob served it out with a bright smile, while the chestnuts on the fire made tiny exploding noises. Then Bob said aloud:
'A merry Christmas to us all, my dear family. God bless us!'
And all the family repeated these words.
'God bless us every one!' said Tiny Tim, the last of all.
I wish you all a peaceful Christmas and a wonderful 2024.
Until next year! Goodbye for now...
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