Hi everyone. Welcome to a special video that I have for you today about American culture and
today I'm going to talk about how we celebrate Christmas in the United States. Before I talk
about Christmas, I want to mention that the U.S. is of course a very diverse country. It's a huge
country with a big population, and we have people who come from all different backgrounds
religions cultures, etc., but Christmas is probably the most popular holiday in this country.
Thanksgiving would maybe be number two. For some families Thanksgiving is the most important one.
And there's a lot of preparation that happens for Christmas, so really the Christmas time is
about a month of the year and we call that the holiday season. There are other holidays that
are celebrated in there as well, for example, there's Hanukkah, but Christmas is the main one.
The U.S. is not a Christian country although Christianity is the most common religion here,
but I wanted to mention that Christmas is celebrated in Christian countries around
the world, but each country has their own traditions or ways of celebrating.
For example, when I used to live in the Czech Republic, I learned that the Czechs have baby
Jesus who comes and delivers the presents and they eat fish for their Christmas meal. In Brazil
where my husband is from, they have other traditions like they always stay up until
midnight on Christmas Eve, but in the U.S. we have our own ways of celebrating. So first of
all, I want you to know that the Christmas season really starts at the end of November,
so in late November we have Thanksgiving, which is always celebrated on the fourth
Thursday of November, and that is a holiday weekend, so Thanksgiving falls on a Thursday,
and we always have Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off, and so most Americans will
celebrate Thanksgiving with their family, and then they start to prepare for Christmas that
weekend. What we usually do on Thanksgiving weekend is we decorate and get the Christmas tree.
The way that we do that is that some families will go to a local place to get a tree,
some families have a tree a fake tree that they keep in their garage, and they get it out
at the holiday season, and other families will actually go to a Christmas tree farm where they
can choose the Christmas tree that they like, and then cut it down. So in our family, we always have
a real tree. We enjoy the smell of the tree, and we know that we're not hurting the environment
because these are trees that are produced for that reason and they are planted every year.
The next thing that happens is that after we get the tree, we decorate it on the same day, and we
also start preparing the decorations for the rest of the house, and these decorations that we have
in the house consist of a few things. So first of all, we have the ornaments on the Christmas tree,
and you'll notice that families have many different styles of ornaments. Some families like
to have them more sort of basic or not a lot of colors. Other families like to have more colorful
ornaments like we do, so let me show you because we have different types of ornaments. We have
ornaments like these that are handmade, this one was made by my kids. We also have ornaments like
these that help us to remember special events. We got this when we went to see “The Nutcracker”
ballet, which is also a common tradition in the United States. We like to go see “The Nutcracker”
ballet before Christmas. And of course, we have these kinds of ornaments, which are traditional.
They are just the Christmas ornament balls that hang on the tree and reflect the light. The other
thing that we do to decorate for Christmas is that we like to have some knick-knacks,
snowmen and Santa. Snowmen because this is a winter holiday here and we like to build snowmen
in the winter. Santa because Santa Claus is the person who comes to bring the children gifts.
We also often have a nutcracker in the house and poinsettias, beautiful plant that we love to have
in the house at Christmas time. We also decorate the house with lights, and usually the lights are
strung on the outside of the house. Sometimes we have lights on the inside as well. Another
very important decoration for Christmas is the stocking, and usually the family will have one
stocking per family member, and they hang above the fireplace. Most families or most houses in the
U.S. have a fireplace, and that's where we hang them. On Christmas Eve the parents will put things
inside the stocking that are like small gifts or surprises or sometimes chocolate or other
Christmas candies, and then in the morning when the kids come to get their presents,
they also will look inside their stocking. The last kind of important Christmas decoration
is a nativity scene, and this depends on the family. For families that are more religious,
a nativity scene is more important. A nativity scene is an arrangement of the figures
that show the birth of Christ because of course Christmas celebrates the birthday or the day
that Jesus Christ was born. You can also see nativity scenes at local churches. I know
that this is something that's more important in some countries. For example, in Italy they have
beautiful huge nativity scenes, but in the United States you see them only sometimes. So those are
the things that we usually do on Thanksgiving weekend, or if that weekend doesn't work,
another weekend in early December. We get the tree we decorate the tree, and we decorate the house.
The next thing that happens is that we have a lot of traditions that we do
leading up to Christmas, and these are things that we usually do for the whole month of December,
especially as it gets closer to Christmas, so one thing that we do is that we like to
send Christmas cards to family and friends. We love to play Christmas music. This is a really
fun and popular part of Christmas in the U.S. We will have Christmas carols on in the background,
and we also enjoy singing Christmas songs together.
Traditionally we also have Christmas carolers, who are groups of people who
go around in neighborhoods and sing Christmas songs, but unfortunately this is not very common
anymore. Besides Christmas music, we also enjoy watching Christmas movies,
and so a lot of families will make hot chocolate, put the fire on, snuggle up in a warm blanket,
and watch Christmas movies with their families on weekends. Before Christmas comes,
another thing that we love to do is bake goodies for Christmas. The most common
Christmas goodie that we like to bake is Christmas cookies, and we have many different
kinds of Christmas cookies that we like. Often these are family recipes that are passed down,
but probably the most typical one for Christmas is Christmas cookies that we decorate, so usually
these are kind of like shortbread cookies, they're made with butter and sugar and flour,
and then we cut them into shapes and decorate them with frosting, and this is a fun family activity.
Another thing that we enjoy making for Christmas is a yule log. This is not as common, but it is
a beautiful cake that celebrates the Christmas season. Now you might notice that some of these
traditions come from Europe because the United States is made up of many people whose families
immigrated here from Europe in the past. We have many European traditions that we also use here.
Another important thing that we do during the Christmas season is of course shop for gifts,
and gift giving is different from one family to another. In my family we try to keep it pretty
simple, and we also like to give money to charity or for donations to help other people at this
time of year. Finally, the last thing I wanted to mention in the time leading up to Christmas is the
advent calendar. An advent calendar is a calendar that starts on December 1st, and it has each day
all the way leading up to Christmas, and this is usually something that a family has for the kids
in the family. Often these are little chocolates or other kinds of candies, so in my family I leave
a little treat inside each box, and my kids come down and open the drawer every morning and get
their little treat. So finally after all those preparations, it's time to celebrate Christmas,
and of course we have Christmas Eve on December 24th and Christmas Day on December 25th.
Christmas Eve is the kind of lesser holiday of the two and we usually celebrate that only in
the evening on that day and different families do it differently in my family we like to have a meal
together on Christmas Eve and we do that at about six or seven pm at dinner time, and then we have
a Christmas treat like a cake or a yule log and we open presents together; however, we
save some of the presents for the kids to open on Christmas Day morning. In the U.S. most families
don't stay up until midnight on Christmas Eve. And then on Christmas Day morning, everybody gets up
early, and we come downstairs, and the kids open their gifts that were left during the night by
Santa Claus. Now my kids are older, they are 13 and 9, and they don't believe in Santa anymore,
and then later on Christmas Day, the family gets together and has a big meal and then relaxes.
Another important thing that some families do is go to church, and the church service can be on
Christmas Eve. Sometimes that's called a midnight mass which celebrates Christ's birth at midnight,
often these are candlelight services where the people hold candles and the church is dark,
but it depends on how religious the family is. Some families don't go to church, or they go to
church just on Christmas, or for other families this is a very important part of the holiday. So
those are the common traditions that we have in the U.S. for Christmas. Of course,
it can be different from one family to another, but those are the most common ones that most
people use to celebrate this time of year. I would love to hear about you. What's the most
important holiday in your culture and what do you guys do on that holiday? If you have questions,
feel free to ask me in the comments below. Take care and happy holidays!