Speaking English: Office Christmas traditions!

Office, Christmas party traditions.

Don't we all love them or not? I don't know. Anyway,

today you're gonna learn about some of the strange and funny office Christmas

party traditions happening all over the United States at this moment.

And if you work with any Americans, well,

you'll maybe have something to talk to them about,

uh,

and how they're celebrating Christmas or the holidays in their office.

Let's go. Hi, I'm your English coach Christina,

and welcome to Business English with Christina,

where you become better at English and better at business.

And today's topic is one of the, I would say,

lighter topics,

the more fun topics that we'll be discussing in our Faster Fluency Conversation

Club, uh, this month. Because, you know, I believe that yes,

we're here to learn business, English, English for work,

but of course we also like to have fun and not take ourselves

too seriously all the time. Now,

you might be surprised to note just how common it is to celebrate,

uh, Christmas, the holidays,

all of that in offices in English speaking countries. You know,

if you work in a company that has offices in the US or the uk

uh, Australia for example,

there's a good chance that your coworkers over there are

doing something special to celebrate the holidays with the coworkers in their

office. So here's tradition number one,

The ugly Christmas sweater party. You know,

I don't know if it's the same in your culture,

but there are certain times of the year in American culture like Halloween,

Christmas, et cetera,

where it's okay to not take yourself too seriously at the office,

cuz I mean, we all like to have a little fun, right? And you might act,

uh, I don't know,

a little more silly or have a little more fun dress more

casually than usually you would at the office.

And one perfect example of that is the ugly Christmas sweater

party. And I'm like, I'm very upset that I, um,

I don't have an ugly Christmas sweater to, to wear for this video.

I tried to put, you know, red and white like Santa Claus trying to be festive.

Um, when I go to the US for Christmas vacation,

I promise I'll find an ugly Christmas sweater and put a photo on social media

for you. Anyway, um, these are, you know, as the name says,

ugly Sweaters with a Christmas theme that people wear just for fun.

Or as in the example of the British royal family to raise money

for charity. And in fact, you know, in American pop culture, um,

in TV series movies, et cetera,

there's always this sketch or this bit about yes,

being fun or having fun and being relaxed and casual at the office Christmas

party. Great, but don't take it too far.

Okay, you ready? Okay. You look ridiculous.

Let's get ridiculous. Is it the hat? Hey,

Merry Christmas, everybody. What? Hey.

So don't be afraid.

You don't have to be totally ridiculous or wear a snowman suit or

anything like that for a holiday party in the us. I mean, unless you want to,

but I don't know, check with your coworkers first, maybe. Um,

but there are other fun traditions that you can take part in

And, you know, we talked about Char doing things for charities.

That's also a popular, um, activity,

I would say at this time of the year when a lot of people think more

about those in need and how we can help them to maybe, you know,

bring a little bit of joy, um, to,

to their Christmas at this time of the year.

And one thing that some companies do is to participate in a

charity drive. And that means just, you know, doing,

organizing some kind of fun activity to raise money to

donate to a charity. And this could be something like, um,

making gift baskets or collecting, um,

collecting items to create gift baskets to donate to a homeless shelter.

Or it could be organizing maybe a fun, uh,

competition like reindeer games, um,

to raise money to donate to a charity. You know,

one thing that we used to do in the US was a canned food drive, uh,

which canned foods, it's, you know, um, like vegetables or,

um,

prepared dishes that are in canned so that you can keep them for a long time.

And there would be a box near,

either near the entrance of the office or in the, um,

in the staff break room. And the idea was that, uh,

people at the office would bring in canned goods,

canned foods to put in the box. And then, you know,

around mid-December we would take the box and then go into,

donate it to a soup kitchen, um, so that they could prepare and, you know,

a nice holiday meal for people who couldn't afford it. Um, so,

you know, that's, yes, it's fun, it brings the team together,

but it also serves the greater community.

You probably can't go through the holiday season without hearing Christmas

music. And I mean, especially if in you're in the US it is everywhere.

It's on the radio, it's in the stores. I like Christmas music,

so it makes me happy. But if you hate Christmas music, um,

this time of year is probably just hell for you.

But it's only a short period of the year, let's say. Anyway,

Christmas music, one thing that you can do with your team, um,

or maybe the different departments in your office is actually to create

Christmas music playlists that they will actually play at the office

Christmas party and maybe have a little competition to see whose playlist

is the best.

Christmas.

And then another very popular tradition that maybe you also have in your country

because, um,

I know that this tradition has ex it's been exported. Um,

and I know in my co-working space, we, uh, we do this, uh, tradition as well.

You know what, it is Secret Santa,

maybe you've heard of Secret Santa.

Maybe you've even participated in a secret Santa. It's pretty simple, really.

Uh, basically you might write, um,

everyone's name on little pieces of paper, put it in a hat, like a,

like a Santa hat for example.

And then everyone draws out the name of someone

in the office and then they will buy them generally a small

inexpensive gift. And then at the office, Christmas party,

they'll exchange gifts. Um,

and you don't know who is your secret Santa, so you know the gift that you get,

um, but you don't know who gave you the gift. And it's just, it's very fun.

It's, you know, it's secret Santa is not about the gift itself,

but it's about just, you know,

having fun and offering something nice to one of your coworkers.

And, you know, that's what Christmas is all about,

just being nice to each other,

thinking of each other and bringing a little extra joy and

happiness in this very dark season.

Now are you serious about speaking English,

but you also want to have fun while you're learning to be more confident

speaking English?

Then I definitely encourage you to check out my Faster Fluency

Conversation Club.

It's our speaking club with members all over the world so that you can meet

people from different cultures, different nationalities,

come together with that common goal of becoming better and more confident

speaking English and having fun while you're doing it,

the best way to know if it's for you is to click on the link down below the

video and check out the details for the Faster Fluency Conversation Club.

As I always say, if you don't use it, you lose it.

And here's one thing that you can do to use what you learned in this video

today. All right?

Now tell me about a Christmas tradition that you

have maybe in your office. Um, you know,

different countries do different things and I love learning about different

cultures, so please share it in the comments. What's an office, uh,

Christmas or holiday tradition, um,

that you celebrate in your office at this time of year?

And if this lesson was helpful for you and you'd like to spread a little joy

and goodwill, there are three things that you can do for that. Um,

give this lesson a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel.

It's like a Christmas gift for me. Um,

because it means that I can come back and share more business English lessons

with you and help you to become more confident working in English. And it's what

I love doing. Uh,

you can go and sign up for my newsletter and also get your

invitations for my free interactive workshops that are coming in

2023, um, absolutely free, like a little Christmas gift for you,

but all year long.

And you can also go and watch this video,

which shares some other Christmas traditions that

I love from the United States. All right?

Thank you so much for improving your English, improving your business skills,

and improving yourself with me.

And I just want to wish you a very happy holiday season,

no matter what holiday you're celebrating or if you're not celebrating. Um,

I just want to say thank you so much for following me all during

2023,

and I'm looking forward to continuing with you in 20.

I think I just made a mistake on that year.

I don't know if I just said 2022 or 2023. That's okay. Um,

you know what I meant? Thank you for being here during 2022,

and I'm looking forward to continuing with you in 2023.

Yes, that's it. All right, thanks and Merry Christmas,

happy holidays to you.