english across the pond — Christmas As Kids

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Hello, hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Christmas episode.

English Across the Pond.

Last episode of the year, 2020.

2020, you've been a doozy.

Yes.

Yeah.

We're not recording in December though, Dan.

No.

We could talk about how it's snowing and it's white and it's beautiful, but we're recording a tad bit earlier trying to, you know, get things as best as they can be for this episode, right?

Well, if we did record on the day that we released the podcast, I don't think that would be very professional.

No, I think it'd be very chaotic, rushing around, trying to get it done and recorded, done and dusted.

Nice.

But in case you're just tuning in, dear English Across the Pond listener, hi, welcome.

Let us take a moment to introduce ourselves and this English learning podcast.

My name is Jennifer.

I'm an American English teacher, a native speaker.

I'm from California, broadcasting and recording from California, the US.

and my name is father christmas and i'm talking to you from lap no i'm not really father christmas snow is falling all around children playing having fun sorry my name is done just hear those sleigh bells ringling jingling jingling jingling too

It is the season of love and understanding.

Merry Christmas.

Actually, that key seems to fit me much better than Bob Marley did the other week.

yeah i'm done i hope people i hope people enjoy our singing if let us know do you like our singing listeners just send us an email today and say you know what i do it makes me smile or like it really just it's like nails on a chalkboard let us know we want to we love your opinion yeah but we might not stop but we're interested there's every chance that if you say you don't like it we might sing more so because

Be careful what you write.

My name is Dan.

Most of the time, I'm a professional singer-songwriter.

But in my free time, part-time, I'm an English teacher and a podcaster.

Hi.

Hi.

End of the year.

Next week, we're going to be... Next week, next Friday is actually 1-1.

January 1st.

1-1-21.

It's like binary code.

Yeah.

Just a quick reflection.

How do you feel so far about 2020?

Like, how do you feel coming to an end of 2020?

Well...

I would say it's been a little bit unpredictable.

To say the least.

A little bit of a surprise.

In February, in February, everything seemed fairly normal.

And then kind of the whole world.

It's like somebody took hold of the world and started shaking the world.

And they haven't stopped.

So yeah, it's been a weird one, Jennifer.

It's been a weird one.

Agreed.

Today...

Friday, when the episode is released, today is when the episode is released.

It's December 25th.

Christmas.

Do you celebrate Christmas?

What it's known as more accurately in the UK is Birthday Eve.

I know.

I was going to get to that.

I was going to get there.

So, yes, I was born on what we call Boxing Day.

It's my birthday.

Tomorrow, Boxing Day, 26th of December.

What was your question?

Do we celebrate Christmas?

Do you celebrate Christmas?

Well, we were talking about this, actually.

Me and my daughter were talking about the fact that we don't really do it.

I mean, our tree is kind of about five feet, you know, like about a metre and a half.

But I think my daughter was talking about it with her school friends.

They were saying, oh, wow, like our Christmas tree hits the ceiling and we have like three.

We do do it.

but we're not that into it really we're kind of we have christmas dinner we have crackers we have paper hats and we have the proper fit but we don't get super super excited about it but it is a special day but we're not turned up to 11. oh i remember that reference yeah turn it up to 11 a british movie reference yeah

Do you have a fake Christmas tree or a real Christmas tree these days?

Fake.

Fake.

So it's a fake five and a half foot tall Christmas tree.

You're making it sound real.

Yes.

Yeah.

No, I mean, that is definitely more traditional than our Christmas tree.

Why?

Because it's not a...

I have a zero.

Oh.

I have a zero waste Christmas tree, non-plastic and eco-friendly, up-cycled and more of a piece of art.

So not very Christmassy.

No, it's not really that Christmas-y, but I love it.

And I get a lot of compliments on it.

I mean, some people who are setting up Christmas trees in October are probably scoffing at the idea, but I love it.

What about one million and one flashing lights all over your house?

Oh, I love that so much.

Do you?

That's not very eco-friendly in terms of energy, but...

we don't we live in a condo apartment so it's kind of hard to decorate but when we were living in houses or town homes we were we were we as in my husband and i as a family we um

decorated the outside i put decorations outside like christmas bows and you know different decor that was wintry and christmassy a santa claus you know sign or a santa claus something sounds good but even as a child we had a

An appropriate amount of lights, you know, just lights around our house, maybe around a couple trees outside or in the window.

Yeah, yeah.

But some houses and some neighborhoods, some communities are known for, like, being elaborate and having just their houses decorated to the nines.

Indeed.

You know?

Oh, I love those.

And people travel around especially to go and have a look at them.

Yes.

Hmm.

in some neighborhoods will like charge money and stuff but there's like people selling hot chocolate and all kinds oh it's so nice i love this time of the year do you like this time of the year um yeah i mean i don't mind the winter i'm um happy to be alive you know regardless of the weather and we should be grateful try to be grateful for every day come what may but it is cold around this neck of the woods um around that time of year actually

um january is our coldest month but december is not really you know you can't class it as warm yeah yeah um i was gonna ask because we wanted to i want to talk about like christmas as kids and traditions but it's an interesting thing you're not gonna have the same experience as any of our listeners that do celebrate this holiday because of course not everybody celebrates christmas and so if you don't we hope you enjoy learning about

you know, the culture and what we do.

But I lost my train of thought.

Oh, so you're not going to have the same experience as other people having your birthday the day after.

No, ma'am.

No.

But tell me about that experience growing up.

Having my birthday the day after.

Yeah.

Like,

Do you think, is Christmas your birthday?

Do you see them as two separate?

Is it just kind of like one big celebratory week?

It's a drag.

Yeah.

My daughter's birthday is June the 23rd, which is pretty good planning on, you know, I don't know her parents, but that's pretty good planning.

And so I think as a little kid once when I was, I don't know, six or something, I think something like...

I didn't really realise what the consequences of this, but I think I must have kept saying, like, can I open another present?

And my parents were like, yeah, but, you know, that's one left you'll have for tomorrow.

And I was so excited to have them and open them that I think I maybe, let's say I had ten, I think I opened, like, sort of eight of them.

And I didn't really think, that was because I was so caught up, you know, and so excited in that moment.

And the next day I was like, really, I was like, oh, this is actually my day.

And...

I kind of had a blowout yesterday.

So from then onwards, I was always really careful to maybe open one present on Christmas Day.

So it did teach me patience, which is a good thing.

But it's kind of... Oh, yeah.

You know, Christmas Day, everyone's excited.

And then by the day after, everyone's bored of being excited.

Yeah.

You know, everyone's kind of whatever, you know, which is unfair.

I mean, people do make an effort.

But in general, you know, I think it's very, very different.

And of course, my birthday is always a holiday.

I'm never at work.

It's very easy to forget about my birthday if you work with me.

Aw.

But there's people whose birthdays are, say, like, I don't know, February the 15th.

And it's the first one after Christmas.

And everyone at work, there's like cake and cards and singing and excitement.

Everyone going, speech, speech.

And then when we break up for the Christmas holidays, I'm thinking, no card then.

Yeah, it's hard.

It's very hard, Jennifer.

But, you know, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

Exactly.

Yeah.

We learned that expression in Spanish from Carlos.

Yes.

In Telegram recently.

Shout out to Carlos.

Hey, Carlos.

I don't remember.

Representing Santiago in Chile.

Yes.

Ask me about my Christmas.

Yes.

Jennifer, my friend across the pond, when you were growing up, was Christmas a big deal at your house?

Oh, yeah.

It was.

We always went to Christmas tree farms to get a live Christmas tree.

We, you know, Santa always came.

We have Christmas dinners with family.

We, you know...

Yeah, we definitely did a lot.

Santa always came.

Santa, when he comes, he would leave our presents in unwrapped, of course.

Santa does not wrap presents, contrary to what many people try to tell me.

Right.

Santa does not wrap and he would leave the gifts out in like sections because I have two siblings.

So like my brother's stuff would be like on the couch.

My stuff would be on the recliner chair.

My sisters would be by the fireplace or whatever it may be.

And then there usually were the bigger gifts.

Santa brought the bigger gifts, the bike or the, you know, something.

And we would wake up and walk out and then see our stuff and then get excited and then go wake up our siblings.

Then we'd be there and then we'd go wake up our parents.

And then we'd spend the morning opening...

gifts from the family and then we would immediately start using the gifts so we always got dvds oh we always got movies all of us like so we each got the movies that we wanted and so then it was always kind of a fight of like who got to watch their movie first but then it would just go back to back so we'd watch movies all day of course there was that classic a christmas story with the red rider bd bb gun and

You know what I'm talking about?

No.

A Christmas.

I think it's a Ralphie.

No.

A Christmas Story is from 1983.

It's like the classic.

Based on the humorous writings of author Gene Shepard, the beloved holiday movie follows the exploits of youngster Ralphie Parker, who spends most of his time dodging a bully and dreaming of his ideal Christmas gift, a Red Ryder air rifle BB gun.

Everyone needs to watch this movie just to get into the US American holiday spirit.

As a non-movie watcher, which I put myself in the non-movie watching category, I do like Home Alone though.

Yes, another classic.

There's a lot of classic Christmas movies.

There are.

That was the one that just plays, that plays 24 hours on Christmas on one channel in the US when we were little.

Now, I'm sure it does the same.

What's the earliest present you can ever, you know, what's the first present that you can remember getting?

You know, maybe when you were like four or five or six.

What's your, you know what I mean?

The present that you remember when you were littlest.

i mean the first thing that comes to my mind is a bike it was like a pink and a white bike and i want to say it probably had training wheels but it's the bike that i also learned how to ride without training wheels oh you know what we call like i have a picture sorry you go training wheels yeah stabilizers oh god how un how un kid like this isn't it stabilizers because they stabilize you

yeah it's very practical yeah scientific what's the what's the name of the pat like a dummy a dummy is a pacifier right yeah yeah a dummy that sounds a little bit more like oh you want your dummy you know like oh so like you want your pacifier yeah so it's like i feel like it's the opposite yes true that's that's a good point actually yeah i agree with you

Yeah.

So that's kind of my recollection of a gift.

But, ooh, one thing I didn't care for...

as a child is like in the afternoon in the evening calling your friends to like oh what'd you get oh right yeah oh what'd you what presents did you get you know and it was such like had this like competition feel you know kind of like how amy's experiencing like oh you only have a five and a half foot tree like yeah mine's eight foot tall and it touches i don't know it kind of creates this competition amongst kids yeah a bit sad but yeah what's the first gift that you remember scale x trick a what scale x trick

scale x trick yeah scale x trick scale x trick what is that a slot car scale x trick wow those are cool oh yeah yeah so it was um

The funny thing was, I mean, this was kind of like the mid-70s maybe, but the Scale Electric, I think it was a massive, massive set.

It would have cost the earth, but it was like second-hand, which was fine by me.

It didn't matter at all.

But it was kind of a classic one from the late 60s, so it was really kind of like classic cars, and there was like four lanes of track in these cars.

You had like a little gun.

You squeezed the trigger on the handgun, and the car was round.

Yes!

And literally, like, you know, really clever.

The harder you pressed it, the faster it would go.

So if you pressed it too hard, the car would fly off on the corner.

That's when you need a younger brother or sister to run around and put it back on for you sort of thing.

Scale Electric was great.

Loved it.

Oh my gosh, we totally had, I don't know if it was this brand, but I do remember an electric car and like a racer car thing.

Yeah, yeah.

How cool.

And I'm not particularly into cars and I'm not...

particularly competitive but scale extra it's just it's just a nice thing to have you know it's just nice to have the car just like i'll tell you what's good designing the layout of the track and trying to get it to match up after you've done this big loop the loop sort of thing that was really fun i like designing it more than i did actually like playing it that's so cool yeah i like that one yeah

Was there a Christmas gift you always wanted?

It was on your list to Santa every year and you didn't get it?

Oh, maybe a guitar, I think.

But, you know, they're just too expensive.

And so I had a plastic cricket bat and I kind of like baseball bat kind of thing.

And I used to pretend that was a guitar.

Oh, nice.

Very creative.

Up until about my 23rd birthday.

I'm joking.

I got my first guitar when I was about 14.

I did get one in the end, but I think it was like 80 pounds, like 100 and something dollars, which back then, you know, it was quite a lot of money.

But the funny thing was that...

Although that was really expensive, as far as guitars are concerned, it was a really rubbishy guitar, actually.

You know, because even a cheap guitar is an expensive guitar.

But it's okay.

It got me going.

And playing bass, like electric bass, is all I've ever played.

The blisters I had on my fingers were just, oh, my God.

Like I'd fallen down a mountain.

But, yeah, still playing.

I've got my lovely cherry red Epiphone SB0 right in front of me as I speak.

oh so nice still playing still playing still rocking still rocking in the free world what about you uh i always wanted a power wheels one of those like small electric cars that you actually sit in and drive your son had one didn't he did he um yeah yeah

thanks mom yeah right yeah no just kidding no they're expensive i happened to find i found his at the thrift store for like ten dollars but they and it was perfect they can be a lot a lot can't they yeah we were like looking for his birthday this this year and they were like upwards of 300 bucks yeah i'm surprised they're not more than that

there were some that were definitely a lot more, but like the cheaper ones I could find were around like two, 300 and we live in the city.

So it was hard to justify that money of like, where were we going to even drive it?

Yeah.

You know, did you ever get one?

Did you get one in the end?

No.

No, I never got one.

But now you've got a car.

Now I've got a car.

So, you know, we grow up, we realize what we need and yeah, it's good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I need to go make a Christmas gingerbread house.

So I got to get going.

I'm going to mosey on over and play some guitar.

Nice.

We hope you enjoyed hearing a little bit about our Christmas traditions.

If you do celebrate, we'd love to hear about it.

If you don't celebrate, we'd still love to hear from you and know what is your favorite holiday that you do celebrate?

Lovely.

Thanks so much for listening.

Yeah.

We'll do it again next.

We'll see you next year.

That's the most cliche thing.

Next what?

Hold on.

It's the most cliche.

Yeah.

See you next year, everybody.

Here we come.

Bye.

Bye.

Hello and welcome back.

This is the Christmas Language Focus.

Yay!

And we're going to take a look at a couple of terms, a couple of the things that Jennifer and I said during this week's episode and explore them a little more deeply to get a greater, a clearer understanding of some of the vocab we used.

Let's do it!

First of all, a quick one.

Jennifer said, and having their houses decorated to the nines.

That's the number nine.

Having their houses decorated to the nines.

What?

To what?

To the nines means to a great or elaborate extent.

Very fancy, very marvellous, the best.

But normally, for me anyway, I would only use this with people's clothes.

And we say that someone is dressed to the nines or dressed up to the nines.

So it's interesting here that Jennifer used it to describe a house.

Obviously, the way that we use it.

is the same.

If someone's dressed to the nines you can imagine they look either very fancy, very flamboyant, bright clothes, expensive clothes or they look very very smart.

Somebody going to a wedding would be a perfect example of somebody dressed to the nines.

The next piece of vocabulary is slightly more challenging.

That's because it's a phrasal verb and there are lots of meanings for phrasal verbs.

I mean lots of meanings for the same phrasal verb.

And for the phrasal verb I use this and it's the phrasal verb to break up.

And I've chosen six meanings.

There are actually more for

and six, but I think these are kind of like main ones.

And to start with the way that I used it, I checked this online and here in England, in the UK, when the term, the school term or the school semester or the school year ends, we say that we break up.

We have the rhyme.

We break up, we break up, we don't care if the school blows up.

As you sing that when you're leaving the school.

So, yay, we break up on Friday.

You can use this for work as well when, you know, it's your Christmas holidays and you say we're breaking up, we're finishing, we're ending.

And this is similar to a meeting.

Meetings can also break up.

We'll break up at six o'clock or a party, any meeting or gathering as well.

That's a very similar meaning.

So, the police broke the party up.

The meeting was broken up.

And a school breaks up.

It's kind of a little difference there, but they're kind of the same.

We also, of course, have relationships.

The marriage broke up.

They're not seeing each other anymore.

They've broken up.

When a relationship between two people finishes, we call it a breakup year.

There's also the kind of more literal meaning of like breaking something.

You know, if something is broken, it comes apart.

If you break a cup, the cup smashes on the floor and it's in pieces.

And you can break something up as in a chocolate bar.

When you break the chocolate bar and give it maybe to different people, you're breaking up the chocolate bar.

Another...

example of this meaning is the ice caps, the polar ice caps when they're melting and the pieces slowly come off the huge sheets or the huge icebergs and this is ice breaking up.

You can also break up a fight.

So if we think of a fight between two students and the teacher will say, hey, break it up, you two.

Break it up.

It means stop fighting.

And in boxing, the referee, when he moves between the people, he says break, break up.

It means to go apart and to stop fighting.

The last one I'm going to talk about is if you're talking to somebody on your telephone and it's and you can't really hear what they're saying, you say you're breaking up.

It means that what they're saying is kind of falling apart.

yet so it means of course that they are losing their signal or maybe you are using your signal and you say I think you could say we are breaking up or you're breaking up I'm breaking up and you could then if the signal goes dead he's broken up it's ended the signal has finished so there's some different meanings I think there's six we'll have a go through we have

Breaking something into pieces, like chocolate or ice, one.

When a relationship ends, two.

When an event ends, like a party or a meeting, three.

When a fight ends, four.

Radio breaking up, five.

And in British English, when you come to the end of a term or a semester, six.

Thank you very much.

Merry Christmas.

See you next year.

Bye.

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