(festive music)
- Hi we're Joel and Lia.
- And, welcome back to Vlogmas.
Today's video is 21 things British people do
but only when it's Christmas time.
- Yup, so some people might've read this title wrong,
like I did when I saw this article.
- How'd you read it?
- That things only British people do at Christmas.
And, that's not what it is, it's things
that only British people do when it's Christmas.
- Okay, got it, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- So, it might also be Americans, Canadians,
Italians, whatever, you guys might do it as well.
But, it's things that people only do when it's Christmas.
- Okay.
- So, the first one that this article on the Mirror
says that we do when it's Christmas,
is we light our homes like the Blackpool illuminations,
inside and out.
And, there's always one neighbor who takes it way too far.
- There is, I've been Googling actually
like pictures of like bad decorations,
and also pictures of incredible decorations.
- Why, for inspo?
- Just for like I was thinking we could
also do a video on like American versus English decorations.
- Yeah.
- Because Americans go so far with their decor.
- Yeah.
- Decor.
And, Brits just get is so wrong.
Like, it's like literally just these
really crappy like little stringy lights.
My mom's done it, we've all done bad Christmas lights.
- Yeah, we all do it. - We've all done it.
- Also, isn't the most fun part of Christmas lights,
going up, driving round where you live,
and judging people based on their taste.
Me and my family would do it. - Honestly it's so funny.
- We'll be driving past and be like oh, look at that house.
Why on earth have they done that?
- (Lia) Yeah, that's amazing.
- (Joel) It is so good.
- So, the second one is like comedy Christmas jumpers.
I don't know if you guys have this,
I don't know where you're watching from.
But, they'll be like Christmas jumper day at work,
and everyone's gonna wear like
the ugliest Christmas jumper ever.
- Yeah, and it's suddenly socially acceptable
to wear those jumpers out in public.
You can be nipping to the shops
and it's fine if you're in a Christmas jumper.
- In fact, like you get more smiles,
everyone's just like, oh, feeling festive.
It's really good. - It's so good.
In fact I was watching Zoella's Vlogmas
from last year, and it was the last day of Vlogmas
on Christmas Eve, and she was like,
oh no, I'm really gonna miss like
just not thinking about what I'm gonna wear when I wake up.
'Cause, everyday until Christmas I've just woken up,
grabbed a Christmas jumper, and put it on.
And, I was like, that's so true.
It's just a really easy way to get dressed every morning.
- Yeah. - Chuck a Christmas jumper on.
- Jeans and a Christmas jumper.
Maybe a little layer underneath.
- Yeah.
- I've not brought mine today.
- No.
- But, you guys will see it in vlogs,
and also like throwback to John Lear 2015.
- Yeah.
- Sitting on that, the brick wall,
with our Christmas jumpers.
- On the sofa, yeah, in our Christmas jumpers.
Eating food, of course we were.
- Throwback.
Cheers Joel, cheers to us,
and cheers to the Christmas spirit.
Cheers to having best friends in each other.
- In each other, and in Prosecco.
- Cheers.
- Prosecco is also one of my best friends.
That's why we're lonely.
Okay, so the third one is that,
this is kind of an obvious one.
- Oh yeah?
- That only at Christmas time do we go hunting
for the perfect Christmas tree.
- Something your family do, don't they?
- Yeah.
- They love, don't you have like make an occasion of it.
- Yeah, well it's normally me and my dad,
and we go and find, we have a live Christmas tree.
We have one fake in the hallway,
and then we have a live Christmas tree.
- Live, I love it, it's live.
- A real Christmas tree. - Live one.
- In the conservatory.
So, we go hunting for the perfect one.
Last year it took us four trips
to find like the perfect tree.
- What sort of trees do you find along the way?
Just like not the right shape?
- They're too small, or there's different breeds.
So, there's a certain breed of tree that we like,
'cause it looks good.
We normally go for like an eight foot one, I think.
- Yeah.
- And, sometimes they're too small or too big.
It really just needs to full, you know,
a fat Christmas tree. - Yeah.
And like, was it about a year ago,
we partnered with Celebrations.
- Yeah.
- And you did a picture of your tree in the conservatory,
with like Celebrations at the bottom.
- Yeah, it was so nice.
- Beautiful tree. - I love it.
But yeah, do you get an artificial one?
- Yeah, we do.
I'd love to have a real one this year though.
I need to convince dad or mom.
I just, someone get a real tree in my family,
will you guys?
Come on, up your game.
- Have you seen some of the gross ones
that are Christmas tree upside down?
Someone has tried to make it a trendy thing.
- Oh no.
- Where it goes that shape, instead of the classic.
So, it's a fake one that goes like that.
- Oh no. - Awful.
- I don't know, luckily my mom's not heard of that, so.
- No, no.
- Mom. - Mom, please no.
- Please no.
But, this year we've got our Christmas tree up here guys.
- Yeah, here it is.
- So, we've gone for tall and skinny.
- Yeah, 'cause we're, it's a skinny legend tree.
(laughing)
It's a tree for skinny legends, so.
- Next one is to just cover the said Christmas tree
with as many decorations as it can hold.
So, I'm talking like stuff you made
when you were four years old at school.
Stuff, just anything. - Yeah, anything.
- Just stuff, just throw it.
- Or you've just gone to a garden center
and you've found one bauble that you really like.
- That's going on there.
- And, you're just like, put it on the tree.
- And also like, pole position on the tree.
So like, mom will be like no, I want my Fortnum and Mason
like baubles there, and then I'm like,
no, but my thing has to go front and center.
- Yeah, that's mine.
I always take charge of decorating our Christmas tree.
So, I'm going home next week to do it.
- They've got Joel home to do the tree.
- Yeah, I always do.
But, you know what, my mom always
goes in after me and moves stuff.
She's like, you've put those baubles too close together.
Or she's like, you've put two gold baubles
next to each other, it has to be like gold and a red,
not gold or--
- I think, I yeah, I agree with that.
- Yeah, really.
Yeah. - Yeah.
You've got quite a good eye for.
- Well no, I agree as well.
When she points it out, I'm like, yeah,
why did I do that?
But, I just love that my mom's like,
no Joel, you do it, you do it,
it's your Christmas, you do it.
And then, I'll do it, come back in.
- She corrects it. - And she's like
moving baubles around.
- She just wants to have you home.
- Yeah, I know, that's it.
Debbie, sneaky. - She's like,
oh glad I got Joel home.
- Sneaky little woman.
But, do you never decorate your tree?
- Yeah I do. - Oh, okay.
- But, it's not like a big deal.
Usually I'll get home and it's been done.
Or like, I can chip in on it.
But yeah, like when we were younger
we'd just be like, who's gonna put the,
what's gonna go on top this year.
- Did you fight with brother John
about who could put the thing on the top of the tree?
- No, we've never fought.
- Oh, never fought, ever.
- No, me and my brother don't fight.
No. - Fighting, not me.
- Mom's like, some people would say
I'm incorrectly 'cause I've put Father Christmas
at top this year, and I'm not--
- Oh no, go for it.
- Yeah, you go.
I'm like, go for it Hon. - You go for it.
- Go for it Jo-Jo, do what you want.
- You just live your true self babe.
Like, she's like, yeah, I know a lot of people
would have a problem with this but I'm just doing me.
- Absolutely not.
- And, I'm like, you just do you Hon.
- You do you.
Christmas is a time for you. - For you.
- And everyone else. - And everyone else.
We have like chocolates hanging on our tree and stuff.
So, there's always like, so as soon as I go in,
I check out the tree and I'm like,
right, what's going, we've got caramel,
got this, got Dairy Milk.
Like, so there'll always be chocolatey things hanging.
- As a dog owner, we can't do that
'cause Oscar would like try and get it.
- Oh yeah.
- Or jump up at the tree.
- Oh my gosh, you can't, you can't.
- No.
- You can't just have like
a bowl of chocolates lying around?
- No, well we can do.
We will if they're wrapped up.
- Okay.
- But you can't just have anything laying about,
'cause Oscar will eat them.
- Oh Oscar.
- Oscar.
Oh, so leading on, like Oscar.
- Yeah.
- This is the time of the year
that we'll give our pets a Christmas makeover.
- Okay.
- So, Oscar does have a Christmassy costume.
I don't think we've, I think we might've chucked it away.
But, he did have like a Santa coat.
- Oh, is that his present?
- Yeah, and every year we get him presents.
He has his own little stocking.
So, all of us will buy a present for Oscar.
So, we'll have five presents, and we open them.
- Have you got him anything this year yet?
- Not this year, not so far.
I will. - You have to get
something good Joel.
- I know, the pressure's on.
Oscar is high maintenance, like he expects a good present.
- Maybe like, Apple EarPods.
- Yeah.
- Some like wireless headphones or something.
- Some caviar, or like something.
- Something, like maybe some Gucci trainers.
- But also, why I drink Persecco,
so the next one is that we sing along
to Christmas songs in the car.
And, just find ourselves humming them constantly,
like throughout the day.
- Oh my gosh, my favorite one, when you're in the car,
is Driving Home for Christmas.
- Oh really.
- Because the lyrics go
♪ Driving home for Christmas ♪
♪ I take a look at the driver next to me ♪
And, I just love like looking over and like.
- What happens when you get the train for Christmas?
- Oh yeah, I know.
♪ Getting the train home for Christmas ♪
I listen to it still, but I imagine I'm in a car.
♪ Driving home for Christmas ♪
(laughing)
- They're like, what are you doing?
- Or like, on a four seater.
- Yeah, and they're like, tickets please.
And, you're just like.
♪ I'm driving home for Christmas ♪
- I remember one year I caught the train
by like the skin of, what is it?
- Skin of your teeth, yeah. - Skin of my teeth.
Sorry, I don't know these quaint.
The skin of my teeth, and everyone clapped
'cause it was Christmas Eve.
And, if I'd have missed it that would've been it.
- That's the last train.
- Would've been stuck in London
on my own for Christmas. - Oh, well done.
- Yeah.
That's what you get when you're working full-time.
And, you can't leave until eight pm on Christmas Eve.
- Awful.
- And, you run to the station 'cause you're like,
I have to get home for Christmas.
- You know what Lia? - They clapped.
- If you want, you can have Christmas Eve off this year.
- Thank you Hon.
- Working for ourselves.
- Okay, next one's about food.
And, it's suddenly okay to scarf like
whole box of chocolates, anything.
Anything you want, you just say to yourself,
Brits say, it's Christmas.
- It's Christmas.
- It's Christmas, I'm allowed this.
- Yeah, anything is fine on Christmas.
- Anything.
You know, you will just go to your friend like,
oh, I just ate a whole packet of Bourbon biscuits.
- Yeah.
- And they're like, well it's Christmas.
- Yeah, and you're like,
oh, yeah, fine. - Shortbread, not Bourbon.
I just scarfed a whole packet of shortbread biscuits.
They're like, yeah, well, I would expect nothing less.
- It's Christmas, you should be.
- You absolutely should be.
In fact, if you're not eating,
people are going, it's Christmas, come on.
- Come on, live a little.
- And, you and I have been like,
hitting the gym so much, hitting.
Hitting the gym so much lately that like,
people will have a problem with it
if you're still gyming up until.
- Yeah. - Do you know what I mean?
Like if you go to the gym on Boxing Day.
- Oh yeah, I did last year I think.
- Well done.
- Yeah, I mean, I was fat last year.
So, that why I went to the gym.
- But, you were doing it. - Yeah.
- Did you have strategy, or just cardio?
- No, I was just, by then I didn't have a schedule
so I just went treadmill, and a few weights,
and that was it. - And then, just yeah.
- Whereas this time, I've got an actual plan, so.
- Yeah, that's good.
- But, yeah.
But, this thing says on the website
about scarfing an entire selection box.
I'd be interested to know if this is a British thing,
or if selection boxes are a global thing.
- Selection box.
- I haven't had a selection box in so long.
- In so long.
- Like, honestly, they were the best part.
- The Hero selection box, that's good.
That's good, that's good. - That's good.
- You've got--
- Galaxy, or Cadbury.
- So, you could get Galaxy selection box.
It's basically your favorite brand.
So, say if your favorite brand is like Reece's,
they might put together a selection box
of like all the best stuff that they do, bite size.
And, then you just eat all of it.
And, it's just called a selection box.
- But, do you guys have that where you're from?
Or is it a UK thing?
Let us know in the comments down below.
- Yeah, I'll be so intrigued.
I really think it's a UK thing.
- Yeah, I think it might be.
- 'Cause who else has got a selection box?
- Yeah.
- You're like, I'll get you a selection box.
- They're like, what's that? - What's that?
- It's a good present. - It's just
a box of chocolates.
If you're enjoying this video guys,
don't forget to like and subscribe.
We normally post videos
thrice weekly. - Thrice weekly.
- But, at the moment it's Vlogmas, we're doing a video
every day. - Every single day.
- Until Christmas Eve. - Christmas Eve.
We might even post on Christmas Day.
- Yeah, maybe.
- Nope, everyone's on their laptops.
- Yeah.
- By the evening, like everyone's bored.
- Yeah, people are bored.
- I get bored Christmas evening.
- Okay, well let us know in the comments as well,
if you want a video on Christmas day.
- Christmas day. - 'Cause we will do it.
- Could post one in the evening.
But, then one of us has gotta sit there and upload it.
It could be all scheduled. - It doesn't matter.
- It could be all scheduled.
- Yeah, it could scheduled.
- Yeah fine. - Fine.
- Fine, fine, figured that out.
- Oh, this must be a British thing.
- What?
- That everyone, the whole family gathers around
to watch Christmas classics like
The Snowman. - The Snowman.
- Over and over again. - And over again.
- Ours would be more like, sitting around
binge watching Home Alone.
- Oh yeah, Home Alone.
- But, The Snowman is good.
There's so many amazing Christmas films.
- The Snowman makes me cry.
- Oh.
- 'Cause he melts in the end.
Spoiler!
- So, sorry if you haven't watched it guys.
That's what happens, and it's really emotional.
- Yeah, really sad.
Also, but I don't like the old Christmas films.
Like my parents will like, actually my dad hates it,
my mom likes It's a Wonderful Life,
which is an American film I think.
- Oh yeah.
- But like, loads of people love that.
They're like, every time a bell rings
an angel gets it's wings.
And, it's like a black and white movie.
- I prefer like Love Actually,
like I love films like that.
Like modern Christmas rom-coms, with all the celebs.
All the celebs. - All the celebs.
- I love watching those.
- But, I'd be really keen to know
what you guys watch.
Again, write a list of everything you need
to comment down below, 'cause I'm gonna say it again.
Comment down below what your favorite Christmas films are.
- Yeah.
- I'd like some recommendations please.
So, number nine is that ice rinks
start popping up everywhere.
- Everywhere. - Everywhere.
- Everywhere, I'm talking indoors,
inside shopping centers, inside stuff
that you didn't even know was like.
- Yeah.
- Like able to fulfill ice.
- In London like they pop up in palaces,
they pop up like in big outside museums.
- Yeah.
- They pop up everywhere. - Everywhere.
We're going ice skating next week, aren't we?
On Thursday.
- Yeah. - Cheers to that.
- Okay, so this one is not true.
- Okay, what does it say?
- This says that mistletoe takes on magical powers
and we kiss a lot more.
- No, it doesn't.
- That's such a like Americanism,
that we've tried to bring over here,
that's just is not happening.
- It doesn't happen. - Mistletoe.
- And like, I definitely don't get kisses over Christmas.
- No, apart from your dog.
- Yeah.
Oh, maybe it does work.
- The next one is that we
put tinsel on absolutely everything.
- Oh, I love tinsel. - Everything.
You've seen that jumper of mine
that's got tinsel on it.
- Yeah, yeah. - Yeah.
I've had to abandon that this year.
It's just a bit too itchy.
- I wonder what the YouTube party,
we're going to a Christmas party at YouTube.
I wonder what their theme is this year.
'Cause one year it was ugly Christmas jumpers.
The last year it was black tie.
- Was black tie.
Here's picture, Joel and Lia black tie,
this is, you can scroll back on our Instagram
and find it. - This time last year, yeah.
- We'd hit 10,000, or 15,000.
- 15,000 subscribers.
- Christmas party.
We were bawling. - Wow, yeah.
- We were so happy. - We were buzzing
walking around that party and everyone
was like, well done guys.
- Oh my God, 15k, yeah. - And we were like, thanks.
So, number 12. - Yeah.
- And, I've drunk so much of this already.
But, drinking hot wine becomes like the thing to do.
- Does it just mean mulled wine?
- Yeah.
- Yeah, mulled wine everywhere.
- Mulled cider's taken off here as well.
- It really has in the last few years.
- Yeah. - It's like for people
that would usually go out and get a beer,
their option is that they can get mulled cider.
- Yeah.
- So, that's just a hot apple juice basically.
And, for wine drinkers it's mulled wine,
it's got like all the fruity stuff in it.
- Yeah. - It's like amazing.
- I made some mulled wine yesterday at home.
- Oh really Joel?
- Yeah.
- Is this some sort of joke?
- Sorry. - Doing stuff without me.
- I know, well I just needed to use up
some bottles of red wine, so poured it in,
put some sugar in, lemon juice, orange peel, limes.
- Limes in there?
- Then I put in like cinnamon sticks,
bay leaves, cloves, like everything.
- Oh, you've got everything.
- And, you like mix it together over the heat.
- Yeah. - And, it's delicious.
- Did you put like rind orange, orange rind.
- Yeah, yeah.
- That's cool.
- It was really nice, but I was shocked
at the amount of sugar that goes into it.
- To make it taste good?
- So, yeah.
- So, it's really sugary?
- Yeah.
- Oh, I see.
That's why it tastes so good guys.
- Yup, there we go.
- Anything pumped full of sugar
tastes amazing. - Tastes amazing.
- We're not gonna do all of these.
We're gonna end it on this one guys.
The last one that we do is,
drinking champagne before 10 am on Christmas day
does not even raise an eyebrow.
- In everyday life, if we were sat outside
in a cafe at 10 am or 9 am, drinking this,
people would be like, what are they doing?
- What on earth are they doing?
- But suddenly, on Christmas morning,
it's socially acceptable.
- Yeah, in fact like, people are like,
where's your champagne?
- Yeah.
- If you wanna drink it on Christmas morning, you're like.
- So funny.
- Oh, champagne for breakfast.
- I don't even know if we really have champagne anymore.
Like, we might have Mimosas, or we call,
what do we call it?
- Is that with orange juice?
- Yeah, what do we call it?
- We call it Buck's Fizz.
- Buck's Fizz, that's it.
But Americans call it Mimosas.
- Buck's Fizz.
- We call it Buck's Fizz. - Buck's Fizz.
- Buck's Fizz, let's have some Buck's Fizz.
- Buck's Fizz.
Mimosas, I only learned that word like a year ago.
- Oh, okay,
- It's 'cause I got an email from someone saying,
should we get a Mimosa?
And, I was like, what's that?
- What's that?
And, then you're like, oh it's Buck's Fizz.
- Fizz.
And, I was like, yeah. - Yeah.
But, that's it guys. - That's it.
- Those are things that we do only
at Christmas time. - Christmas time.
- Let us know if you have these things
where you are from.
- We will be replying to you guys in the comments.
- Yeah.
- Please subscribe to this channel
if you're not already subscribed
'cause we're doing a video everyday in December.
Go back and watch old videos, stay with us tomorrow,
watch the next one, if you want.
- Definitely.
And, share with a friend, if you think
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See you next time. - See you next time.
Bye. - Bye.
- I am feeling festive AF, are you?
- (Lia) Festive AF.
Festive AF. - Festive AF.
What about you?
- (lia) As if there's a full word, like not even AF,
you know the literally meaning of that.
Festive AF. - Festive AF.
It sounds like a radio station.
Welcome to Festive AF. - Welcome to Festive AF.
We're Joel and Lia.
Is that where we automatically go to, American.
- (Joel) Yeah, of course.