Hello! I'm Emma from mmmEnglish!
December is a super fun and exciting month for me.
It's also really busy.
There's Christmas celebrations and all the shopping,
wrapping, cooking and fun times that go with it.
And not long after,
we welcome in the new year with a huge party!
I'm always curious to learn more about how
other people around the world
celebrate these traditions,
so I asked my friends Vicki and Jennifer
to share a little more about how they celebrate.
You might recognise them,
they've been teaching on Youtube for many, many years.
Jennifer from Jennifer ESL is American
and Vicki from Simple English Videos is from the UK.
We all celebrate differently and here in Australia,
I celebrate this time of year quite differently
because the weather is warm and sunny.
If you celebrate Christmas or New Year's Eve as well
then I'd love to hear how you celebrate in the comments!
It's such a fun time of year!
Christmas just wouldn't feel the same
without a Christmas tree!
I live in Massachusetts and here in New England,
it's easy to find a Christmas tree farm.
Many people buy a real evergreen tree every year.
Other families, like mine, have an artificial tree.
My children and I start decorating for the holidays
in early December.
We put on music,
we put up the tree
and then we decorate it with ornaments, lights
and candy canes.
The days are short, so we get to
enjoy the Christmas tree lights in the evening.
The really magical moment is Christmas morning
when we find gifts from Santa Claus under the tree
and in our stockings that are hanging
from the mantle of our fireplace.
Let's go over some key vocabulary.
Real and artificial are opposites when we're
talking about Christmas trees.
A real tree grows in the forest or on a tree farm.
An artificial tree comes in a box,
so you have to assemble it.
'Put on' is a phrasal verb.
If you put on music, you cause it to be heard.
Let's put some music on.
Let's put on some holiday music.
'Put up' is another phrasal verb.
When you put up a tree, you erect or build it.
When are we going to put the tree up?
Did you put your tree up already?
Stockings at one point were regular old socks
but today, they've become much larger and decorative.
Kids like big Christmas stockings because they can
hold more treats from Santa.
When are we going to hang the stockings?
Did you hang up your stockings already?
This is the mantel. As you can see it's like a shelf
above the fireplace.
People often place, photos, clocks and knickknacks
on the mantel.
At Christmas time, it's where the stockings are hung.
That's interesting!
In England,
we usually hang our stockings on the end of our beds
so we can start opening our presents
the moment we wake up!
But let me tell you about my Christmas day!
I get up early on Christmas morning
to make some stuffing.
I mix up sage - that's a herb -
breadcrumbs and onions
and that sticky stuff I'm adding is peanut butter.
Our dog loves it!
This mixture is called stuffing
because we stuff the turkey with it.
Put it inside.
Turkey is a very traditional English Christmas dish
and it takes a long time to cook
but that's good because I have a lot of other stuff to do.
There's more food to prepare
and the family are coming,
so I need to get everything ready for the meal.
When the turkey is cooked, Jay takes it out of the oven
and it looks great!
So everyone congratulates him.
Great job Jay!
And Vicky of course.
Do you remember what I put inside the turkey?
It was stuffing. If you stuff something, then you fill it.
So you saw me stuffing the turkey with stuffing.
Filling it with the mixture.
But stuff has other meanings too.
It's an informal word that we use a lot in spoken English.
Sometimes it means substance.
So for example, that peanut butter was sticky stuff.
Stuff is a very vague, a nonspecific word.
We use it if the name of something isn't important
or if we don't know the name.
So if you want to know what a substance is called,
you can ask "What's that stuff?"
We also use stuff to talk about actions and jobs
and again, it's nonspecific.
So when I said I had stuff to do, I meant jobs
but I didn't say what jobs exactly.
It was just a group of different things.
One more stuff word.
After we've eaten a big British Christmas dinner.
we feel stuffed.
"I'm stuffed" is an informal expression
and it means full of food.
Okay that's enough stuff about Christmas,
let's go to Emma
and find out about New Year in Australia.
While Christmas time is about family and food
New Years Eve is about letting your hair down
and celebrating with friends.
We reflect on the year that's finished
and we wish each other luck and good fortune
for the year to come.
Here in Australia, it's summertime
so our New Year's celebrations are usually outside
at the park,
at the beach,
on a boat or at someone's house.
We're usually drinking champagne
or other alcoholic drinks
and everyone is excited and in a festive mood.
Around New Year's Eve, you'll hear this question a lot:
"What are your New Year's resolutions?"
At the start of a new year we make promises about
how we're going to do better for ourselves
in the following year.
We promise ourselves that we'll
exercise more or lose weight
or learn a new language or any other skill.
But to be completely honest,
most of these resolutions,
they get broken within the first month of the year.
Of course, the highlight of New Year's Eve
is the countdown to midnight
when the year officially changes.
During the final 10 seconds of the year,
we count down from 10 to 1, out loud,
at the top of our lungs
and then we call out "Happy New Year"
and hug everyone around us,
whether you know them or not.
And of course, that's when the fireworks begin!
Okay, let's take a closer look
at the vocabulary that I used.
I said to let your hair down.
Now this expression is used
when you want to relax and enjoy yourself
and behave much more freely than usual.
I also said a festive mood
and we use this word, festive, to describe
someone's feelings when they're happy and excited
because they're celebrating something special,
like Christmas or New Year's Eve
or Thanksgiving or even a birthday!
What about a New Year's resolution?
A resolution is a promise to do or not to do something
to try and improve yourself.
There are a few collocations that you need to remember
when you're using resolutions.
Verbs that are usually used with this noun
like make,
have,
keep,
and break.
Do you have any New Year's resolutions?
If you do, share them in the comments!
Do you usually make New Year's resolutions?
I don't keep any of my New Year's resolutions.
I usually break
all of my resolutions by the end of January.
I'm hopeless!
I also use the noun, highlight,
which means the best part.
The highlight of the night is the best part of the night.
I mentioned the countdown
but I also used the phrasal verb 'to count down'
and that means to wait for something to happen.
When you're watching the clock and you're waiting,
waiting, waiting for something to happen.
You're counting down the minutes
until something exciting happens.
'The countdown' is a compound noun
and it looks different. The two words are together.
And finally, at the top of our lungs.
And this just means, well this is an idiom,
it just means
as loudly as you can possibly say something
at the top of your lungs.
Happy holidays and happy studies everyone!
Merry Christmas everyone!
Happy New Year!
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