What's up, guys, how's it going? Welcome to another English listening practice video. So just like the other listening practice videos
I've made, this video will be about 10 minutes in length and the way I suggest that you use it
is that you watch this video three times: first without the English subtitles
So you just listen and try to understand as much as possible, and then a second time with the English subtitles activated.
(I'm gonna put those below) and then the third time without the English subtitles again
so in this way
you can see how much better you are the third time
than you were the first time and how many more of those small words you can understand the final time around
So today, the topic that I want to talk about is Christmas and specifically Christmas in the U.S.
So I know a lot of you are probably interested in how
we, Americans, celebrate Christmas and what the differences are between Christmas in the U.S. and Christmas and your country?
So I'll talk to you just briefly about that
So first, what you need to know is the Christmas season begins around the end of
Thanksgiving. So most of you probably know about the U.S. holiday, Thanksgiving
which happens at the end of November. And usually, right after Thanksgiving
this is when the Christmas season starts. And when I say Christmas season, what I mean is
everything starts to become
more Christmasy it becomes
It has a more Christmas feeling after that
so what happens is people will start to decorate their houses with Christmas lights and decorations and
music will start to...
Christmas music will start to be played on the radio, in stores, in cafes and
pretty much everywhere you go, you're gonna hear Christmas music or Christmas-themed music
wherever you go
So yeah
that's the start of Christmas season and
around this time, as I mentioned, people decorate their houses. And so one thing that's kind of cool in the U.S.
is pretty much no matter where you live, I think, as long as you're in a big city, you can find certain
neighborhoods or certain... like streets or cul-de-sacs that are dedicated to
being what we call a Candy Cane Lane. So if you live in one of these neighborhoods
pretty much you agree to
decorate your house with amazing Christmas decorations and lights so that the whole neighborhood
is decorated in amazing Christmas
decorations. And the reason why they do this is it attracts people to come and... and...
Take a stroll around the neighborhood and look at the different
houses and their decorations and their lights and it's just a really cool thing that people
take pride in if they live in one of these neighborhoods
So there are usually a few of them in every big city
You can go and and just spend an hour
or so walking around, or even driving slowly around these neighborhoods that have really amazing
Christmas decorations and lights and they're completely decked out from top to bottom with really cool things
So that's one of the... interesting things that you can do around the
Christmas season in the US
and so once Christmas starts to
approach and we start to get closer,
people will put their Christmas tree up
Some people buy a real tree and some people even go to the extreme and they go and cut down
a Christmas tree from the wild and they'll bring it home and...
and use it for their Christmas tree and some other people use a fake one
So in my parents house, they always put up a fake Christmas tree
So they assemble it every year and it's easy to put together and then take apart and then store in the attic or whatever
but one tradition that we have
Not everyone has this tradition
but when I was young... I have one sister, so my sister and I
would get to decorate the Christmas tree with ornaments, and this is something we looked forward to every year
during the Christmas season, is we would...
or my dad would go into the attic and he'd take down this big box of ornaments that we had
And my sister and I would take turns putting the ornaments on the trees... on the tree... and decorate it
however, we wanted and
one common
thing that children do in school in the U.S. around Christmas time...
usually just young children... teachers will have them make ornaments like in the art class or whatever
They'll make ornaments for their Christmas tree and they'll bring them home and they'll have new ornaments every year for their tree
So this is something I did when I was in preschool,
kindergarten, first grade and so on. So we always had new ornaments to add to the tree
So when we were young, we really like doing this
Another tradition that I think most families
will... will do in the U.S., is that they do Christmas stockings
So if you don't know what stockings are
those are these... the big socks that Americans will hang above the fireplace and this is where
Santa comes down the chimney,
down the fireplace, and he puts gifts in each of the stockings for the kids and even for the adults sometimes,
sometimes the family will put a stocking for everyone, even Grandma and Grandpa and whoever and so
For example, and I was young, my sister and I, we would wake up at like 6:00 a.m
every Christmas morning and we would, you know, whoever would wake up first,
we would awake the other person up and then we'd run into the living room
We'd go and we'd open our stockings and open up all the presents before my parents woke up
So this was one of my favorite memories of Christmas that I had... that I have from my childhood.
I miss
having stockings to open because now I'm an adult and we don't do that anymore
but when I was young that was one of our favorite parts of Christmas, and so
Another thing that's a little bit different in the U.S. and in other parts of the world
I know, especially in Latin America, is that in the U.S.,
Christmas is really
considered the 25th of December
so the 24th is what we call Christmas Eve and this is important and usually your...
families get together on Christmas Eve maybe and have a celebration but
Christmas itself is really on December 25th. And I know this is different in most other countries
Here in Mexico, where I live, the 24th is more important and I think in all of Latin America
it's the same and I'm assuming in Europe, It might be the same as well.
But in the U.S., the 25th is really the most important day. That is Christmas Day
as opposed to Christmas Eve, which is the 24th. And so
Normally what will happen though is if you have a pretty big family,
what people will do is on Christmas Eve,
maybe, they'll spend that day with the mother's side of the family maybe and then on Christmas Day
they'll spend that day with the father's side of the family and this is what we did when I was... when I
was growing up is on the 24th, we would go to my father's side of the family to celebrate and on the 25th,
we'd celebrate with my mother's side of the family. So I know that's pretty common
just so you get to see everyone: all the aunts, all the cousins, all the grandparents and everyone and
You get to divide that into two days, so
Usually even though the 24th is not considered Christmas for us, that's Christmas Eve,
it's usually still a day of celebration because usually you go to both sides of the family
Not everyone, but this is what we did growing up. So during the actual Christmas Day celebration
typical foods
usually include like ham, I think ham is probably the most
typical Christmas food. As you guys know, on Thanksgiving
we eat turkey and on Christmas you could eat turkey, but it's more common to eat ham, like a
a good Christmas ham and so ham is... is very common. Things like mashed potatoes,
obviously salad, bread,
and all the sides are usually subject to the different family, the different
the different
customs of your family or of your state or city or region of the U.S.
So the sides can be really different depending on who you are and where you are
Whereas ham is pretty much the main
Christmas
the Christmas
entree, let's say, but some people don't use ham... or don't eat ham and some families are vegetarians so they do something else
But ham is probably the most
important food during Christmas and of course during Christmas, there's a lot of sweets and cookies and
People decorate Christmas cookies. This is something that my wife is gonna do with the other woman in our family
I think this Saturday they're gonna go decorate Christmas cookies
and they... they make designs on them and and use icing and other
other sweets and toppings and they assemble these cookies and it's kind of a fun thing for the holidays
So yeah, that's pretty much what
my experience with Christmas is
in America. Other Americans have other experiences and if you ask other Americans
they'll tell you something probably a little bit different, but in general, that's what I grew up doing
around Christmas time
and so I hope this was informative for you and you learned a little bit and if you have any questions about
Christmas, or if you have any questions about any of the words or phrases I used, or if you didn't
understand something that I said, go ahead and leave that in a comment down below and I'll help you out with that
So yeah, if you have any other suggestions for future
listening practice videos, any topics that you want me to talk about,
you can also leave those in a comment down below and I'll add those to the list of topics that I want to discuss.
And so yes, I wish every one of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and I'll see you soon, bye-bye
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