How ya doing? Good, how are you doing? Excellent. Good.
Have a good day, sir. You too, thanks.
Hello, everybody.
This is jack from tofluency.com and welcome to this special Christmas English lesson.
Now if you are new here, know that I help English learners reach a high level of English.
And in this special video, I'm going to walk around the Biltmore Estate, tell stories about
Christmas, introduce vocabulary for you, and then be sure to check out the description
to learn how you can get the worksheet for this lesson so that you can take your learning
further.
Okay, thank you for being here... let's go!
So, to give you some context, I grew up in a place called Preston, Lancashire, England.
And this is just north of Manchester.
So, I am originally from the UK, however, I've been living in America for six years
now.
So, I have experience of Christmas in both the UK and America.
Let's talk about what a typical Christmas was like growing up.
Now, when I was about 11 until 15, my cousins used to come and visit every Christmas.
They used to arrive on Christmas Eve and leave a few days after Christmas.
Now, this meant that our house was full of people - it was packed and as a kid, I loved
this - I loved having my cousins there.
I loved having my auntie there, and it just made Christmas a little bit more special.
As a kid, I would wake up really early...
I'd wake up super early, get everyone up, and I was just so excited about opening presents.
This is what kids are like, and I remember this very distinctly.
I also remember one Christmas when I had a plan.
So, our parents would fill up our stockings and put them at the end of our bed every Christmas
Eve night.
And one year, I stayed up.
I stayed up because I wanted to open this stocking before I went to bed.
But I was getting really frustrated because I could hear my mum and my auntie talking
downstairs and they weren't ready for coming to bed, so, I would make loud noises and do
stuff to try and say, "hey, come on, it's time to bring up that stocking."
But I fell asleep before they brought that stocking up - it's probably a good thing because
it's more exciting to wait until Christmas to actually open your presents in your stocking.
So, we would wake up really early, go downstairs, and my dad would make my mom a cup of tea.
She refused to get out of bed before she had a cup of tea.
So, we made sure that happened - we made sure that she got her cup of tea really early so
that we could open presents even earlier.
But I used to get really frustrated because my mom was in no rush to open presents and
as kids, we wanted just to open the presents as early as possible.
So, usually around nine, we opened the presents and my cousins always got some really cool
stuff.
One of my cousins was into science and he got things like a soda maker all this… all
these different scientific experimental kits - stuff like that, so it was a lot of fun
for us to see what he got and also so that we could use it as well.
One Christmas, I was really inspired by Rocky - the boxing movie - so, I asked my parents
to get me weights and a boxing bag.
And with most exercise equipment, you use it for the first, you know, two or three weeks
and then you stop using it and then you forget about it.
A couple of other days that I just loved around Christmas: firstly, our friends used to have
a tradition to go out on Christmas Eve Eve, So, on the 23rd of December.
And we used to wear fancy dress - we used to wear costumes... so, we would dress up
as Santas, dress up as snowmen and just go out to a few bars, stay out late, and have
a lot of fun.
Probably my favorite day of the year is Boxing Day.
And Boxing Day is the day after Christmas.
I believe it's called Boxing Day because the owners of factories used to give boxes of
gifts to their workers the day after Christmas - so this is on the 26 of December.
I might be completely wrong about that so do check the link that will leave in the description.
But Boxing Day, as I remember, was a lot of fun because Christmas Day can be quite stressful.
Everyone opens presents and then you have to cook a meal - all those different things,
especially, if you have family.
But Boxing Day is when you have the leftovers, so, everyone eats leftovers - the leftover
turkey leftover, leftover potatoes, vegetables - those types of things.
And usually, people have parties.
So, they'll invite their friends and family to the house, have a buffet-style party, and
people just feel a lot more relaxed.
Football or soccer is also a big part of Boxing Day.
So, this is when every team in the country will play.
My team is Preston North End and I remember going to some away games - going to places
like Stoke on Boxing Day to watch Preston play and, yeah, they have the biggest attendances
of the year on Boxing Day.
As many of you know, I spent a couple of years living in Spain.
Now, firstly, we lived in Bilbao and then in Valencia.
Now, in Bilbao, they had their own version of Santa Claus called Olentzero, I think he
was called, and he was a guy who lived in the mountains and, apparently, he wasn't a
very nice guy.
While we were in Spain, my parents came to visit us and my sister did as well.
So, the first year, we celebrated Christmas in Bilbao all together.
Now, my dad wasn't very happy about a certain thing because instead of having turkey, which
is traditional, we ended up having salmon.
But apart from that, everyone had such a great time in Bilbao.
And then when we were in Valencia, my wife and I celebrated together and we remember
having such a good Christmas.
It was really warm over the Christmas period and we sat outside having some drinks on Christmas
Eve and then on Christmas Day, we made our own Turkey, but we did this in a toaster oven
because we didn't have a regular oven, so we had to make the turkey and everything else
in the toaster oven.
Just in case you're interested, we used a Jamie Oliver recipe and I'll leave that recipe
below.
Like I said at the start of this video, I've been living in the US for six years now.
So, we have had different types of Christmases here, you know, we've celebrated in different
ways.
For example, we have gone to France to visit my family and to spend Christmas with them.
We've gone to Connecticut, where my wife's family's from, to have Christmas with her
family, and we've also celebrated here in Asheville.
So, sometimes, we're with family, sometimes, were not and because of this, we have had
to build our own traditions and this is a lot of fun because now we have a family, it
means that we can create our own traditions - we can think about what we're going to eat
for Christmas, think about how we go to celebrate Christmas Eve, and having children makes Christmas
so exciting again.
It's going to be interesting to see how things change over time, you know, how we celebrate
Christmas moving forward.
But for me, it's the best time of the year.
Everyone is in a good mood, everyone wants to celebrate, it's about family friends and
also giving and receiving gifts.
Okay, I am now back in my office just to let you know that that is the end of this special
Christmas video.
If you have enjoyed this, then please give it the thumbs up and share it with anyone
who would find it useful.
Like I said before, there is a worksheet that you can download and I'm going to include
a few extra things in there for you just click the link over here and you'll be able to download
that.
Okay, so thank you so much for watching, see you next time!
There's a turkey.
We must be really quiet.
Hello, Mr Turkey!