Christmas

Christmas is one of the happiest times of the year. In English-speaking countries, children sing special Christmas songs called carols, at schools they dress up in costumes and perform a nativity play (the story of Jesus’ birth in the stable); everything is decorated with evergreens, symbols of lasting life. This magical season brings families and friends together. 

The Christmas season is celebrated twelve days, but the most important days are Christmas Eve on 24 December, Christmas Day on 25 December and Boxing Day on 26 December.

The start of the Christmas season is called Advent. It begins four Sundays before Christmas. Thanks to Advent calendars children can count the days to Christmas. Advent calendars are posters or cards with twenty-four small doors, one to be opened each day from 1 December until Christmas Eve. Behind each door there is a picture or a chocolate. 

Children hang up their stockings on Christmas Eve. They write letters to Father Christmas, but do not send them. Instead, they throw them in the fire, and if letters fly up the chimney, the children will find the desired gift in their stockings or under the Christmas tree on Boxing Day. The name Boxing Day comes from the custom of opening church money boxes on that day. The money was for poor people. 

On Christmas Day, the whole family gathers at midday to have a big Christmas dinner. Traditional foods are: turkey, Christmas cake, Christmas pudding and mince pies. 

Traditionally, when you find a bone of the turkey in the shape of the letter ‘y’, also called a wishbone, you ask another person to hold its end and pull. The person left with the larger piece of the bone makes a wish. 

As for the pudding, each person in the family should help mix it, because this brings good luck. People sometimes hide a silver coin inside. 

Today, mince pies are round and full of sweet, dry fruit. But, not long ago, they were of different shapes and filled with real meat. It is said that if you eat 12 mince pies in 12 different houses during the 12 days of Christmas, you will have happy 12 months in the coming year. 

No Christmas meal or party is complete without Christmas crackers (brightly coloured paper tubes, twisted at both ends). When the crackers are pulled, a colourful party crown, a toy or a gift, and a joke falls out. 

And here are a few Christmas jokes: 

- What’s white and goes up? 

- A confused snowflake. 

- What goes ‘oh, oh, oh’? 

- Santa walking backwards! 

- What goes, ‘Now you see me, now you don’t’? 

- A snowman on a zebra crossing! 

The Christmas season ends on 6 January, on the Twelfth Night, when people take down decorations. 

Prepared by Dragana Videnov, an English teacher 

P.S. Go to http://www.primarygames.com/holidays/christmas/games.htm and have fun playing Christmas games!