Welcome back to the Learn English podcast, the podcast teaching English in context so you can learn naturally.
My name is Dr. C and I'm a TESOL certified English teacher.
I teach English online to students who are learning it as a second language.
I created this podcast with the goal of it becoming a resource that you can use to improve your vocabulary, fluency, and knowledge of American culture.
Today I wanted to focus on the vocabulary aspect and discuss Christmas specific vocabulary.
Christmas is celebrated on the 25th of December so it is rapidly approaching.
And if you know anything about Christmas in the United States, you know that it is a major holiday.
There are songs, movies, TV shows, and this entire Christmas culture that comes with its own specific vocabulary.
So I wanted to discuss these terms with you today so you can understand what they mean and use them in conversation.
And with that, let's begin.
Let's start with the basics of Christmas.
The word Christmas, when you're hoping that someone has a good Christmas, what you're going to say is Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas gets said all the time.
It is on ads and in songs so you're going to hear that term all the time.
People will wish you a Merry Christmas.
You'll wish them a Merry Christmas.
People will say have a Merry Christmas.
So it is always Merry Christmas.
That is different from Britain where you'll hear Happy Christmas.
Happy Christmas is very British so do not say that if you're in the United States.
If you were here in the U .S.
it is Merry Christmas.
So the word Merry means to be in a good mood, to be very lighthearted, to be enjoying your time when you're doing something.
And so you'll hear that term with this specific time of year.
Personally for me, I would not say the word Merry outside of Christmas time.
Now I am from just my small little spot of California so I don't speak for the entire country.
But in my mind when I hear the word Merry, I think of cold weather and Christmas parties and just the Christmas spirit, we would say.
So Merry can be a mood like you can be merry, which means that you're happy and enjoying your time and enjoying whatever it is that you're doing.
Usually like at a Christmas party or with friends celebrating the holiday.
It can also be how you describe people so other people can be merry.
So for example children are merry at Christmas time, especially if they're getting gifts or they're opening presents.
And again, I would just think of it more as a Christmas specific word.
When we're talking about words that mean the same thing, so synonyms of Merry.
You'll also hear joyful or joyous or cheer or cheerful and those all mean about the same thing.
There's little slight differences, but they all mean about the same thing.
Now, joyful and cheerful.
Unlike Merry, I would use those words year round.
So I could use them in the spring and the summer time, even though I wouldn't use Merry in the spring or the summer time.
And again, they mean about the same thing.
So if you're saying something is joyful, so that means that you're having this feeling of happiness.
A very intense feeling.
So you're extremely happy, really enjoying whatever it is that you're doing.
So you might say if you saw someone after a long time, you hadn't seen them in years and you reunited with them.
That would be a joyful experience.
You're very happy to see them.
A crowd can also be joyful.
So let's say that you're at a sporting event and your team is winning and everyone's celebrating.
That would be a joyful experience.
Everyone is very joyful, very joyous in that moment.
Cheerful is similar.
It usually, though, means that someone is more happy as like a personality trait.
So if someone is a cheerful person, that usually means that they're just a happy, friendly person just naturally.
But again, you can also have it mean like for a group of people.
So you can have like a cheerful crowd, which means everyone's pretty happy and enjoying their time.
You can also have like a cheerful experience with someone.
So you can have a cheerful conversation if you have a really fun, engaging conversation with somebody that can be a cheerful conversation and like a cheerful experience that you have.
So merry, joyful, cheerful again, all mean about the same thing and you'll hear them a lot, especially at this time of year.
When we're talking about this time of year, when we're talking about December, you'll also hear the words the season or it is the season that comes from a lot of songs and movies when we're talking about Christmas.
So season, you think of like the seasons of the year, so spring, summer, fall, winter.
But when you're in Christmas time, when you hear the season, what that really means is the Christmas season, which to me and how I use it is more focusing on December.
So like the time around Christmas, not really the season of the year, so like a fall or winter, but the time of the year.
So you'll hear tis the season or it's the season for giving, and that means it's the time to like give gifts and give back to the community, do charity work.
You also hear the Christmas season, which means the time of year where you have your Christmas decorations, you have your Christmas songs on, you're watching Christmas movies, you're enjoying Christmas with your family.
So that's talking again about a very specific time, like the lead up the few weeks right before Christmas, where everyone's getting into that Christmas spirit, we would say.
That mood, that enjoyment, getting ready to celebrate Christmas with their family, with their friends.
Another word that's associated with this feelings of being merry and cheerful and joyful is festive.
So festive is when something is very closely associated with the holiday with whatever festival or holiday that you're celebrating.
So for example, during the Christmas time, pretty much anything can be festive, so you can have a festive drink.
So if you listened to our podcast episode about special holiday drinks, those would be festive drinks, they are associated with the holiday time.
You can have a festive outfit.
So let's say you wear a Christmas sweater that has Christmas motifs on it.
That would be a festive outfit.
You can have a festive party that is decorated with a Christmas tree and ornaments and lights and looks really nice.
That would be a festive party.
You can be in a festive mood.
So a festive mood is when you want to celebrate the holidays.
You have a drink, you have your family, you have really good food, and you're having a good time.
And you're just enjoying this Christmas season, this Christmas time of year.
And that would be a festive mood.
You feel very festive in that moment.
A city can be very festive, a crowd can be very festive.
So if you're out with a crowd of people who are enjoying Christmas time and drinking and eating and enjoying their time, that would be a festive crowd.
A city can be festive if they decorate their streets and their lights and their lamp posts have Christmas decorations on it.
That would get festive decorations and set the festive mood for the city.
So that word just really means that it's a tide to the holiday and it's really showing all of the special things that are associated with that holiday.
So festive doesn't have to mean specifically Christmas, right?
You could have a festive outfit for Halloween or for Fourth of July, but mainly that word is used for Christmas time and you'll hear it a lot, right?
You'll hear it a lot during the Christmas season and people talking about being in the festive mood and having like these festive experiences.
Another word or phrase I should say is holiday spirit.
So when you're in that festive mood, you could say that you have the holiday spirit or you're being persuaded by the holiday spirit.
So the holiday we're talking about without even saying it, it is Christmas.
So when someone's saying holiday season, right?
They're referring to Christmas time.
When they're referring to the holiday spirit, they're talking about the Christmas spirit.
So the Christmas spirit is this concept that at Christmas time, it's the time to give.
So that's why we exchange gifts with people is that it's supposed to be the time of year where you're giving to others.
And specifically with the holiday spirit, you're giving and you're sharing with people who might be less fortunate than you.
So if you want to share the holiday spirit, if you want to spread the holiday spirit, you are wanting to spread kindness, you're wanting to spread joy and you're wanting to give things to other people.
During Christmas time, there's a lot of people who get involved with community and charity work.
So they might work at a soup kitchen, which serves free meals to people who are in need.
They might give items, clothing, essential items to people who are homeless or who are struggling to get by.
And that's really a key part of Christmas time.
A lot of people deal with charity work or get involved with charity work and that concept of sharing the Christmas spirit, sharing that holiday cheer, giving back to your community and to people who are less fortunate is a traditional part of Christmas.
A key part of that Christmas culture and sharing and giving to people who need it and people who are less fortunate.
And it's the time to kind of reflect on the blessings that we have, on what that we have in our lives and what we're able to share and give back to others around us.
And the last set of words we're going to discuss are another trio of synonyms, another set of three words that mean about the same thing, but with subtle differences.
These are words that you'll hear a lot during Christmas time and they are glittering, sparkling and twinkling.
Now, these words don't have to be Christmas specific.
You can use these three words all year round.
But again, you're going to hear them a lot more frequently during Christmas time because they have to do a lot with the atmosphere.
They're always to describe different things.
And Christmas tends to be a time of year that uses these words a lot in their descriptions.
So when we're talking about glittering, we're talking about things reflecting light.
So think of glitter.
Glitter is usually very shiny, very reflective of whatever it's showing and you can have glittering Christmas decorations, for example.
So when you have your ornaments off, they reflect the light from the Christmas tree and they're said to be glittering.
And snow can be glittering, an ice rink when you go outside to go skating that can be glittering.
So they're all surfaces or things that are reflecting light.
Again, doesn't have to be Christmas specific, but at this time of year is when you get colder weather, you get snow, you get ice, icicles, Christmas decorations.
All of those can reflect light.
They tend to be very shiny, very reflective.
And so you were saying they're glittering.
Words similar to this is sparkling.
And sparkling again has to do with something reflecting light or showing light.
But usually that light is coming from within itself.
So for example, a diamond sparkles.
It doesn't glitter.
So glitter would mean it reflects, but sparkle means it comes from within the substance itself.
So the diamond is sparkling.
You can also use it more metaphorically.
So not literally of actually like emanating light and being a light source, but in terms of something being kind of more light in nature.
So for example, you can have a child's eyes sparkle when you give them a gift.
So that doesn't really mean that they're shooting light out of their eyes, but just that they're lighting up.
We would say they're very happy when you're giving them a gift.
They're smiling. Their eyes are shining brightly.
And we would say that that's a sparkle in a child's eyes that they're very happy to get that gift.
Someone can also have a sparkling personality.
So if someone's very fun and upbeat and outgoing and you just want to talk to them and be around them, that would be a sparkling personality.
So you can have someone who sparkles, someone who just seems to kind of emit this warmth and this light from them, even though it's not literal.
It's just this feeling you get.
So you can talk about it more figuratively in that aspect or you can talk about more literally like champagne sparkles or a diamond sparkles.
The last one is twinkling.
So a twinkle. Twinkle is again dealing with light, but this time it's usually the light source.
So this is really tied with actual light bulbs or with stars.
You hear this idea of stars twinkling.
Let's say you go out at night and you look up at the stars and it looks like the stars are shining and then not like really rapidly.
The light goes in and out.
And so that is called a twinkle.
And you might have heard the song Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
And that's what that concept is that these stars.
This light kind of goes in and out really rapidly kind of looks like it's flashing or blinking in a way.
And that's a twinkle.
You can also have twinkle with your Christmas lights.
So your Christmas lights, there's actual lights that you can buy that go in and out really rapidly and emanate this effect that have the same like look like these stars, these little flashes kind of of light.
And then you can say that your lights are twinkling.
So the Christmas lights were twinkling, the stars were twinkling.
Again having to do with with the appearance of the light.
So you can say glittering, you can say sparkling, you can say twinkling all year round.
But because of the Christmas decorations, the snow, the ice, that tends to be something that you'll hear at Christmas time more often than you would any other time of the year.
Those are the Christmas words I wanted to share with you today.
This is by no means a comprehensive list.
There are so many Christmas words that I could share with you.
But because of the time, I really wanted to focus on these ones.
Tell me if you learned something and if you liked this because again, we can discuss many more Christmas phrases and words and other specific vocabularies.
I have so many more ideas, but I don't know if you like them.
So please leave a comment and let me know.
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