- Oh God.
Why did I take such a big bite.
- Howay the lads.
- And it's called a pantomime.
I thought I was going to a mime show.
(laughing)
Our brandy is literally on fire.
Oh.
(dramatic music)
(upbeat music)
- Hi I'm Tom.
I'm from the UK, land of train station pasties,
Victoria Beckham, driving on the left,
and David Attenborough.
- And I'm Jeff.
I'm from the US,
land of Twinkies, the NFL,
and the good old electoral college.
(laughing)
- And this is 'Brits vs. Americans'.
- Festive edition.
- We still need to bring content to you
but we are doing it from the safety of our own homes,
as you can see.
- [Jeff] High five Tom.
(clapping)
- Did that work?
- See magic.
- Movie magic, amazing.
(laughing)
It's Christmas, it's Hanukkah.
Yuletide greetings.
- We've got candy canes.
We've got mulled wine.
We've got Advent Calendars.
We've got Black Friday deals.
We've got Christmas deals.
We've got after Christmas deals.
Even the term holiday.
You know, we would call it the holiday season.
- Yeah if you said to me, like,
what are you doing for the holidays?
I'd be like, I dunno,
maybe I'm going to Tenerife?
It's not for another the six months, you know.
(bell ringing)
- The time has come for me to try
my very first Christmas pudding.
I have heard people talk about
how much they absolutely hate these,
and yet I know they're a tradition,
so I feel like there's got to be
some element of good in there.
Here we have a, not only a Christmas pudding,
we have a luxury Christmas pudding.
I'm told I must top it with brandy that is on fire.
I can't even drink Ribena,
you think I can light alcohol on fire?
So say goodbye to my flat in case it burns down,
and we'll see how this goes.
The Christmas pudding is done in the microwave.
So.
Hot.
Oh wow, just got a huge whiff of that.
The brandy is heated up,
so now I'm going to light that on fire
and pour it onto the Christmas pudding.
(upbeat music)
Hmm.
The brandy is literally on fire.
Oh.
Oh, that caught on fire so quickly.
Wow, it's on fire.
(gasping)
So it's not on fire anymore,
but there is my brandy soaked Christmas pudding.
And now it is time to try it.
It seems really mushy.
It seems quite moist, which is good.
Oh God.
Why did I take such a big bite?
I did not expect such a cute little
Christmas cake to have so much flavor.
The inside of the cake is much better than the outside,
because of the brandy,
but it's not good.
Yeah, I hate it.
I was going to say I don't hate it.
I hate it.
Apologies to the UK for insulting a tradition of yours.
You guys can keep your Christmas pudding.
And I'ma bounce.
(upbeat music)
Christmas markets are barely even a thing in the US.
So the idea of a big, grand,
European Christmas market?
That doesn't really exist in the US.
I think some places are starting to have it
and starting to pick up on the trend.
- Back up home in Newcastle, where I come from,
it's often like you get bratwurst sausages,
and you can buy, like,
I don't know, like wood carved stuff.
- You know, that's like a fair,
but like with games, and like you said,
bratwurst, and live music,
and a Bavarian tent, like all this stuff,
it's so fun.
- Speaking of that.
We have such a tradition here of, like,
live entertainment, like pantomimes.
Have you ever been to one of them?
- I've been to a panto and it's called a pantomime.
So I thought I was going to a mime show.
(laughing)
- Did you really?
You just thought that someone would come out
and like absolute to give it all this?
Well, this is the thing.
So I think if someone's going to go
to a pantomime for the first time,
you need to be told a few things.
Like when the baddy, like the bad character comes out,
you're supposed to boo at him.
And then there'll be a bit where, like,
someone on stage goes like,
oh, no he didn't.
And then, do you know?
- Oh, yes he did!
- There it is.
See, you got it.
Yeah, you got it.
We would always turn on the Queen's speech,
but no one ever watched it. Oh yeah!
Are you familiar with that?
Have you heard of the Queen, the Queen's speech?
- Well, I've heard of the movie The King's Speech,
so I assume it's that.
- Nothing to do with that.
The Queen's speech is every year on Christmas day,
at three o'clock in the afternoon.
She's like sat on some fancy desk in Buckingham palace,
and she's like, this year will be an interesting one.
She'll be like,
this year we've faced more challenges
than we ever thought we would face,
but united as a Nation we shall get through them.
It'll be something like that.
I'm telling you, I'm calling it now.
- Pretty good, I think.
- But also, big question.
Where does father Christmas come from?
- The North Pole, right?
- No, Lapland.
That's where I would say he comes from.
- But Santa lives in the North?
(birds chirping)
(wind whistling)
So like, when you guys are talking about like Santa,
you think he actually lives in Lapland, Finland?
- Yeah, that's what they tell us.
It's like Santa Claus lives in Lapland,
which is like up in Finland,
and it's really cold,
and he lives somewhere in the dark
mountainy bit of Finland.
- You guys aren't told he's from the North Pole?
That's so weird.
Mrs. Claus, is she a character in your story time?
- Yes.
Yeah, she exists. I don't think about her much
because she doesn't bring any stuff.
So she's less on the mind.
- Yeah, yeah.
True.
- So as part of my American festive season education,
Jeff has provided me with this.
A gingerbread house kit.
Whip the egg white until it begins to stiffen,
and stir in the package of sugar.
Add a few drops of lemon juice or white
vinegar to make the icing stickier.
Let's get to whisking.
(metal clanking)
Beauteous.
Ah, why is it so,
what's wrong with me?
What is wrong with me?
Great, well we're off to a horrible start.
What even was that, that I just did?
Oh my God, oh my God.
Come on, Tom.
It's just icing.
You can do this.
(screaming quietly)
Oh God.
Icing bag is ready, after a fashion.
Fill the four gaps in the square foundation base with icing,
and insert the large A shaped gingerbread pieces.
Wow, who knew piping icing was so satisfying.
(gasps) This is incredible!
I've never piped icing in my life,
and honestly, I'm already obsessed.
So these go here, I think.
And then this goes here.
Is that right?
Squeeze icing onto the edges of the A-frames,
and attach the roof sections.
I can do it, I can do that.
Don't be afraid of the icing, Tom.
It's only here to help.
Okay, I'd say I did that pretty well,
if a little heavy handedly.
Is it like that?
Oh, right,
right, right.
Okay, that looks good.
(laughing)
Oh, I'm sorry.
I'd move in tomorrow.
And then it says, finally,
to fix the Christmas tree out front.
Established 2020.
Thank you so much.
Look at that!
Okay, so you know what?
At this point, instructions?
Don't need them anymore.
I have a bit of an idea what I'm going to do.
So follow along with me,
and see if you see where I'm going with it.
If any of you know anything about me,
think about where I'm from, where I grew up.
You might get a better idea of what it is that I'm doing.
So I've chopped the end off of this black icing,
and I'm not literally just gonna.
Ah, yes.
Perfect, that's what I want.
Howay the lads!
(laughing)
I literally have a degree in graphic design.
Can you tell?
(comical music)
Gingerbread house reveal!
I would like to introduce to you my gingerbread house,
which exhibits the parts of my personality
of which I show the most pride.
Gay pride, and then on top of that,
we've got Geordie pride.
I'll be honest, I'm not a football fan,
but I, as a Geordie person,
I'm incredibly proud of my heritage.
And what better way to represent Geordie
culture than with the NUFC strip.
So that's the story there.
I'm honestly buzzing about this, I think it came out great.
Am I an idiot?
(festive music)
- The only like major thing I can think
about doing when I was a kid,
was going to the mall to take a picture with Santa.
Like going to a Santa's Grotto in a shopping mall.
There's always like a long ass line,
and you go and wait, and you sit on Santa's lap,
taking a picture, and then getting a print out and leaving.
Like, it's just so?
And it was always in the center of the mall,
so you could always see the people doing it.
We would occasionally, so my family lived,
we lived in Maryland but my
mom's family lived in Massachusetts.
So you can't just pop around
to your grandma's house for Christmas.
- Is that far?
- Yeah, so that's about an eight to 10 hour drive,
or like a few hour flight.
- That's far.
- The idea of kind of extended family members
getting together is much more possible
in the UK because of the size.
- I imagine that, like,
the ultimate American family get-togethers,
where there's like 20 of you,
and there's like the animals that don't get on.
You're in some cabin in Aspen, or something like that.
- So like the plot of every single movie.
- Yeah right!
(laughing)
(bell dinging)
- Pecan pie.
American pie game is strong.
Blueberry pie that's like this deep,
Pumpkin pie, apple pie even.
Another one to ask that roster is pecan pie.
Like, I've never had it,
but I absolutely love brown sugar
kind of butterscotchy tastes,
and I also love pecans.
So I think I'm going to be well into this.
It smells warm, and nutty,
and caramelly, and butterscotchy,
and it looks kind of sticky,
and, oh my God.
Yeah, this looks incredible.
Okay.
Is that not just the most picturesque,
beautiful thing you've ever seen here?
Here goes my first ever bite of pecan pie.
My mouth is salivating so much.
That is unbelievable.
Oh my God.
If this is the caliber of food
you're eating at Thanksgiving,
you guys have got it made.
Oh my God.
(laughing)
You know what's really funny?
I'm trying this,
and Jeff has to eat Christmas pudding.
(laughing)
Christmas pudding's horrible!
- Turkey to me is Thanksgiving.
We go all out on Thanksgiving with our Turkey.
Turkey, stuffing,
corn on the cob, gravy,
all that stuff just screams Thanksgiving to me.
It's a day to eat a lot, drink a lot,
and then just, like,
sit on the couch watching TV.
There's the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade.
So, you know,
that's a big thing to watch.
So maybe that's our version of the Queen's speech.
- Yeah, oh my Gosh.
- So just like huge floats floating down New York City.
You know, all your favorite characters,
you know, like Charlie Brown,
and Simpsons, and Star Wars guys.
There's always some big football,
like American football game on
that people are excited to watch.
Maybe multiple games,
I'm not a sports fan so I wouldn't even know.
My favorite part about Thanksgiving, so growing up,
the day after Thanksgiving is Black Friday.
- Right?
- So what my friends would do is we would get together
and we would sleep over at each other's houses,
and then wake up at 5:00 AM.
Sometimes like 4:00 AM,
and go wait in line at, like,
Target and Best Buy.
Things aren't, you know,
we're not buying things online,
and we don't have Netflix and stuff,
so I would like, we would go out,
all my movie box sets,
and like CDs and stuff,
I would buy on Black Friday for so cheap.
- Black Friday, to me,
it's something I became aware of maybe like four
or five years ago when it started to kind of
trickle over as a thing over here.
But I remember the very first time
I heard of Black Friday.
It was on the news.
And like the doors would open,
and it was like (wooshing),
like millions and millions,
like hundreds of people running into the stores.
Like honestly, part of me was like,
oh, isn't that awful,
but in the back of my head, I was like,
if I was there, I so would be one of those people.
(laughing)
(bell ringing)
- I've actually never made mulled wine,
so I'm very excited to kind of learn how to make it myself.
To me, mulled wine just kind of screams Christmas season.
You know, the spirit is in the air.
So let's get to making,
because that way we can get to drinking.
For this recipe, I need full bottle of red wine.
I need one cinnamon stick, one stor anise,
three black peppercorns, four cloves,
clementine, and 50 ml of brandy.
So there is my beautiful mulled wine ingredients.
You start off by pouring the wine in.
Putting it on a very low heat.
We need to bring this to a little simmer.
Add in the one cinnamon stick.
One star anise, three peppercorns,
four cloves, mix those around.
We're going to take the clementine slices.
Get those in there.
I even have a mug.
Going to ladle it into that.
There we go.
Mulled wine is made.
You can even see the steam.
It doesn't smell as spiced as I would have hoped for.
Yeah, still really just tastes like red wine.
I don't think this recipe was good enough.
I think next time I would add in more of the spices,
but it's nice to have a bit
of a winter market here at home
since I won't be going to any this year.
Yum.
Cheers, merry Christmas.
- I would always, every single time,
every Christmas, have Turkey,
and you maybe not so much on Christmas day?
- Yeah, so Turkey is our Thanksgiving food.
Yeah, like my family,
we always did a Christmas ham. - [Tom] You do Christmas ham?
Like glaze, with the peppercorns,
or whatever, cloves in it?
- Yeah.
Thanksgiving is all about the Turkey.
It's not the primary meat for Christmas.
What is a mince pie?
What is in a mince?
It it sweet or is it savory?
What's in it?
We don't, mince pies aren't a thing in the US.
- It's a, really?
- Yeah. - Oh.
A mince pie is like shortcrust pastry,
and then this is where it also gets a bit confusing.
The stuff inside of a mince pie is called mincemeat,
but it isn't meat. I don't know exactly what it is,
but it's like currents, I think.
And like lemon peel, orange rind,
and like, spices.
It's a sort of, like,
it's kind of like a spicy jam almost.
That's called mince meat.
- So no mince pies are made with meat?
- Not now.
I do think like way back when,
you know, in like medieval times,
mince pies were made with pork or beef that was spiced.
But I think nowadays it is
transformed into purely a sweet thing.
Like you have it with brandy cream,
or like, ice cream,
or something like that.
I can't believe you don't have mince pies.
That's like one of the cornerstones of my Christmas time.
- Yeah, no,
we don't have them. And I did not know what I was eating
the very first time I ever had one,
because I wasn't sure if it was meat or not.
Because the holidays are such a family focused tradition.
Like, if we had gotten a different
American and a different Brit in here,
the conversation still would have been totally different.
I am ready to continue drinking some mulled wine.
I'm ready to never have Christmas pudding ever again.
- Yes, and I'm going to go make
myself a gingerbread cathedral.
It's time to level up.
- Merry Christmas and happy holidays everybody.
See you in the new year.
- [Tom] Bye.
Yeah?
- [Jeff] Yeah, cute--
- [Tom] Cool, cut.