Hey everyone and welcome to the Understandable English Podcast.
I hope you have all had a wonderful holiday season.
I know I have.
Today in this podcast I would like to talk about Christmas and New Year's in the UK.
The reason why I've recorded this podcast after Christmas and New Year's is because I would like to talk about my Christmas and New Year's as an example.
So this will give you a nice idea, a good view of how people in the UK celebrate Christmas and New Year's.
So as many of you probably already know, Christmas is pretty much the biggest holiday in the UK.
It is much more popular than New Year's, Easter, I don't know, even birthdays.
It is the number one holiday of the year.
It is a time where people meet with family, they have a lovely dinner, they exchange presents, they talk about Santa Claus and all of these other lovely Christmas traditions.
So to start with, I will tell you a little bit about when Christmas usually starts.
So, as you know, Halloween is in October, and as soon as it becomes November it is what the Americans sort of call fall as well, or autumn as we say in the UK.
During this time there isn't really a lot of celebration in the UK.
In America they have Thanksgiving, Black Friday, all of these different special occasions.
But they aren't as big here.
Here we kind of have a gap.
In november there isn't a holiday, but as soon as it turns december the first, the first of december, the christmas holidays start to begin.
People begin to prepare.
Usually on the 1st of December people will put up a Christmas tree and Christmas decorations.
This could be lights around their house, both outside and in.
They may be multi-coloured lights, so lights with different colours, and on top of this they usually have something we call a wreath a wreath, and this hangs on the door, on the front door to be precise.
The wreath is kind of like leaves, it almost looks like leaves, and it is in a circle.
It may also have some pretend berries on it as well.
This looks very, very Christmassy.
On this day as well begins kind of a countdown to Christmas.
Children often get these things called Advent calendars.
Advent calendars and this is like a rectangle, so a rectangle shape, and it's made of cardboard and there are lots of tiny little doors, little small doors, and the children open one door each day and behind each door is a little piece of chocolate.
So a tiny piece of chocolate.
I hope this isn't too complicated so far.
So an advent calendar, a small sort of rectangular box with lots of tiny doors.
Behind each door which the child opens each day until christmas is a small piece of chocolate.
When I was a child I used to love this.
Whenever I got up and I was getting ready for school, I would eat my breakfast and then go to the advent calendar, open the next door and eat the piece of chocolate.
I think this is a great way to get children excited about Christmas, because they are counting down the days and they are thinking about this wonderful holiday.
Another thing that people often do during this time is something called a carol service.
So what a carol service is, is when people get together and they sing Christmas songs.
These are usually quite religious songs, so they are Christian-based songs about the birth of Jesus and various other things related to Christmas time and the Christmas holiday.
This is a really nice occasion, even if you aren't religious.
I am personally not religious, but I still enjoy a carol service and the songs.
It has a very nice community feel.
It is a very warm and interesting event.
And apart from this, people prepare their presents.
So in December time, they are gathering presents for their friends and loved ones.
This is something that I think is definitely much bigger in the UK than even New Year's in Russia.
And it isn't always a good thing.
People buy very expensive presents here.
Parents often buy a ridiculous, a crazy amount of stuff for their children.
And in my opinion, it is a little bit too much.
Of course, they tell their children that these presents are delivered by Santa Claus.
This is the equivalent or the same as Ded Moroz in Russia.
And I'm sure you all know who Santa Claus is.
But in my opinion, I think that these presents and this idea of gifts is a little bit too much here.
For me, the idea of Christmas and Christmas Day is more about spending time with family, enjoying each other's company.
It is about love, compassion and a sense of community and warm feelings during winter.
And I feel like if we focus on presents and gifts, it really distracts from this feeling at Christmas.
This idea of being together and the most important thing being each other.
When we focus on very expensive, large gifts, they become almost the most important thing.
Children are looking forward to getting a new games console like an Xbox or a brand new phone, and they sort of lose the meaning of Christmas.
But not every family does that the exact same, and of course you can choose to give as many gifts as you want or as large a gift as you want.
That's entirely up to you.
The same as with new years in russia, so on christmas day in my family we first wake up quite early in the morning.
When I was a child it was quite different, because I would run downstairs and wait to see what Santa, Santa Claus, had delivered for me.
What sort of presents?
Had he answered my wish list?
Children in the UK often write a little list for Santa Claus for the type of presents or what gifts they would like on Christmas.
Of course, this just simply makes it easier for the parents to know which gifts to get their children.
But it is also quite an exciting process for children.
Then we would go in see these gifts, maybe play with them for a little while and then finally decide to prepare for lunch.
So my family, in particular my mother, would do a lot of preparation for Christmas dinner.
She would prepare a turkey ham, lots of potatoes gravy, which is a sauce, and lots of vegetables and just a ton of different things.
This is now, at my current age, my favourite bit about Christmas.
I love the food.
The food is one of my favourite things.
So now, when it gets to lunchtime, we all gather around the Christmas table.
We have these little things called crackers.
Which are, this is quite hard to explain.
I would recommend googling, looking up on the internet, Christmas cracker, cracker.
And these are essentially these long things where one person pulls on each side and they rip, they tear apart in the middle.
And inside is a little small present.
And only one person wins this present.
Whoever wins the largest side of the Christmas cracker when it tears apart.
Then, after this, we begin to eat dinner.
After dinner, most families sit down in the living room and they watch the Queen's speech.
Every Christmas, the Queen delivers a speech.
She gives a speech to the British people.
She will often reflect on the year that has just passed.
She will talk about the main events, the main problems, difficult things that happened this year.
Of course, she talked a lot about coronavirus and about the problems that our country faced and about the hope and the light for the future and how we need to come together as a community and work together with love and support.
Usually this message is very positive and often a lovely way to spend the afternoon watching this short message together.
After this, people usually spend time together in a living room or another room.
They often play games and just enjoy each other's company.
Perhaps they even watch a Christmas movie.
This is something that my mother loves to do.
She loves watching Christmas movies.
I don't mind Christmas movies too much.
They are okay.
I prefer to just watch one or two each year.
I get quite sick of Christmas movies quite fast.
I find them a little bit boring sometimes.
Then, once Christmas is over, once the day is finished and everyone goes to bed, we then awake the next day, and it is a day called Boxing Day.
Now, this day is really my favourite.
And the reason for that is that everyone pretty much does nothing.
We just relax, eat more food and sweets and chocolate.
And maybe the children play with their new gifts.
Everyone else, the old people sleep.
They sleep by the fire.
And it is really a lovely relaxing day.
Most people are then still off of work until after New Year's.
They stay at home, they relax, spend time with family.
Maybe some people travel and then New Year's comes.
Now this is where things are quite different from Russia.
New Year's here, it is still a big event but it isn't really a holiday.
It doesn't have the same importance as in Russia.
It is often just celebrated with friends or a small group of family.
We don't have a New Year's meal.
There's no like New Year's food.
People usually just drink some alcohol and they watch the countdown to New Year's and then just shout Happy New Year.
And often a lot of people just go to bed.
Some young people go out and party or go to a party.
But a lot of people don't really do very much at all.
They will watch the new year, maybe watch fireworks.
That is about it.
It's not really a big holiday here.
And that is why I love spending New Year's in Russia.
Because usually, like last year, I spent Christmas in the UK.
So I had a wonderful big celebration here on the 25th.
And then after it was over, I traveled to Russia and I had another huge celebration on New Year's.
More food, more presents, more lovely times.
And that is definitely one of the big benefits of dating a Russian woman, because i get to celebrate both christmas and new year's equally as big, which is wonderful.
Unfortunately, this year it didn't work out.
My trip to russia was cancelled at the last moment and, as you probably know, with the new type, the new variant of covid and the uk has went into another lockdown and sadly i'm stuck at home and i didn't get to experience another new year's.
That was really tough, if i'm honest, and i haven't seen my girlfriend now in almost four months, which is a long time, and i really miss her and i really miss russia.
But I was very happy that I still made it home to celebrate Christmas with my family.
And I really hope that you have been able to celebrate New Year's in Russia with your family or friends or loved ones.
And I think it's always important to remember that that is what the holidays are about.
They're about family and friends and people that you love.
And I really hope that I get to Russia for the next New Years.
And I hope that I get to Russia very, very soon this year.
And yeah, if you have any questions about Christmas and New Years in the UK, feel free to ask me.
You can message me on Instagram.
I definitely haven't talked about everything.
There are many tiny little traditions and aspects of Christmas that I have missed.
But I think it's going to be impossible to remember them all.
If you have any topics at all that you would love for me to talk about on this podcast, please message me with a question or a topic idea and I will try to cover them especially for you.
I love taking suggestions and I really do love answering your questions and discussing with you about the topic.
Thank you so much for listening.
I am really glad that you are here and that you are listening to this podcast.
I love you guys so much and all your support on Instagram, TikTok and this podcast.
I hope that this is helping your English and that this project and podcast really does help.
Thank you and have a wonderful, wonderful day.
Goodbye.
