10 English Expressions About Christmas That You Might Not Know!

65,137 views ・ 2021-12-21

Learn English with Bob the Canadian


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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Well hello,
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and welcome to this English lesson about Christmas.
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Christmas is just around the corner.
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In English, when we say something is just around the corner,
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it means it's going to be happening soon.
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In a few days, it will be Christmas.
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And so I thought it would be a good idea
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to make a little English lesson for you about Christmas,
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where I teach you some idioms and phrases
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that are just commonly heard around this time of the year.
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So stick around, and you'll probably learn something new.
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There's a bunch of phrases in here
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that I've never taught before in a Christmas lesson.
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(joyful music)
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So the first phrase I want to teach you
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is the phrase white Christmas.
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I've been dreaming of a white Christmas.
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That's actually a line from a song,
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but I do like it when we have a white Christmas.
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A white Christmas is when there is snow on the ground
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on Christmas day.
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I don't know what's happening this year,
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but I think there's very little chance
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that we're going to have a white Christmas this year.
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We've had snow once or twice.
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It comes down, it sits on the ground for about half a day,
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and then it melts.
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So a white Christmas
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is when there's lots of snow on the ground on Christmas day.
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And I'm not sure we're going to have
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a white Christmas this year.
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I should probably mention a couple things
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about Happy Christmas versus Merry Christmas.
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These are phrases that people say around Christmas time.
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And usually mostly on Christmas day.
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In North America, we generally say Merry Christmas.
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That is the most common thing to say on Christmas day.
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Merry Christmas,
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and then later we even say Happy New Year.
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In Britain though, in the UK,
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they tend to say Happy Christmas, I think.
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I've heard that when I watch British TV shows.
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They say Happy Christmas to people.
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And it sounds a little bit funny to my ear.
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So you may hear both phrases,
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depending on what flavor of English you are learning.
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In North America,
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you will most often hear Merry Christmas,
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but if you're over in the UK,
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you might hear Happy Christmas.
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When I think about Christmas,
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I usually think about Christmas trees.
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People often put up a Christmas tree
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in their house to celebrate Christmas.
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It's kind of a Christmas tradition,
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and you heard me use the verb to put up.
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That's the verb we use
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when we talk about putting up a Christmas tree,
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or having a Christmas tree in our house.
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People often put up their Christmas tree
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around the beginning of December, and then their tree is up.
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You'll hear people ask questions like this.
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Do you have your tree up yet?
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Or how long do you usually keep your tree up for?
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And then the other verb we use is to take down.
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People often take down their Christmas tree
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at the end of December, or at the beginning of January.
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So when you have a Christmas tree,
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you put up your Christmas tree
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when you want to have it in your house,
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and you take down your Christmas tree
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at the end of the Christmas season.
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But I wanted to mention one other thing.
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There are two types of trees.
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There are real Christmas trees.
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If I was to cut one of these trees down,
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which I would never do, and put it in my house,
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it would be a real Christmas tree.
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And then we have what are called
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artificial Christmas trees,
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or informally, most people call them fake trees,
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or fake Christmas trees.
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So that's a tree that's made in a factory,
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and it looks a lot like a real tree.
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So you put up your tree, your tree is up.
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You take down your tree,
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and you either have a real tree or a fake tree.
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Christmas isn't just celebrated in our homes.
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Sometimes people at work have a lot of Christmas spirit,
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and they want to celebrate Christmas too.
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And there's two English terms that I know of
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when it comes to the workplace and Christmas.
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The first is what we call a Christmas bonus.
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A Christmas bonus is when your workplace,
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or your boss gives you extra money,
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or some kind of gift, because it's the Christmas season.
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Christmas bonuses are very, very cool.
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Some people get a small Christmas bonus,
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and some people, if their company did really good
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in that year, they might get a huge Christmas bonus.
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So a Christmas bonus is a gift you get from work.
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It's usually money,
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but sometimes it's actually something else as well.
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The other thing I was thinking of was this.
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Sometimes you will have a Christmas party at work.
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It's maybe called an office Christmas party,
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or a work Christmas party.
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Or you might just say,
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I have to go to a Christmas party at work,
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but sometimes workplaces will have a party,
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usually a week or two before the actual Christmas day,
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where everyone, all the coworkers and the boss get together,
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maybe have a meal, or just some stacks.
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It might be during the work day,
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or it might even be at night.
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So a Christmas bonus, something cool you get from work
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at Christmas, usually money,
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and a Christmas party, an office Christmas party,
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a time to get together with coworkers
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to just enjoy each other's company
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for a little bit during the Christmas season.
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Kids, especially school-aged kids,
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really enjoy Christmas as well,
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because they get to have some holidays.
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They get to have what's called Christmas break,
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or Christmas holidays.
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And it's usually about two weeks long.
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If you work, you might get a few days off at Christmas.
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You might get a whole week,
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but if you go to school, you usually get two weeks off.
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Sometimes even an extra day or two past that.
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I know for me, I get two weeks off,
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because I'm a teacher, and that's kind of a cool thing.
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Most of my siblings, though only get about one week off.
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So I don't mention it very often
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that I get a two-week holiday, because it's Christmas.
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Just because the students get it, so I get it too.
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So Christmas break or Christmas holidays
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is how we refer to the two weeks at Christmas
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where kids don't have to go to school,
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and teachers don't either.
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Some people really like Christmas,
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and some people actually don't like Christmas,
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and we have a couple of English phrases to describe
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those two types of people.
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When someone really likes Christmas,
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we would probably say
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they have a lot of good Christmas spirit,
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or they have good Christmas cheer.
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So when you have good Christmas spirit,
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it means you actually really like the Christmas season.
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But if I was to say that you are a Scrooge,
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a Scrooge is someone who during the Christmas season,
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doesn't like giving gifts,
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doesn't like singing Christmas songs.
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They're just kind of grumpy and grouchy
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about the whole Christmas season.
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So we would call that person a Scrooge.
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So if you have good Christmas cheer,
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if you have a good Christmas spirit,
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that means you really like Christmas,
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and you enjoy everything that happens during that season.
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But if you were to describe someone as being a Scrooge,
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it means they're grouchy and grumpy,
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and would rather just not have Christmas happen at all.
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You probably know which one of the two I am.
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I'm not a Scrooge.
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Well, thank you so much for watching
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this little English lesson about Christmas.
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I hope it really helped you learn a few more terms,
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and phrases, and sayings,
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and idioms that we use in English
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when we talk about Christmas.
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By the way, if this is your first time here,
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don't forget to click that red subscribe button over there.
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And give me a thumbs up
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if this video helped you learn a little bit more English.
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And if you want to know more about Christmas,
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and how to talk about it in English,
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I'll link a playlist here
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to some videos that I made in the past.
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Some English lessons from the past
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that I think will really help you.
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Bye, and Merry Christmas.
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(joyful music)
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