Let's Learn English! Topic: Christmas Verbs! 🎅🎄🎁 (Lesson Only)

Well, hello and welcome to this

English lesson about Christmas verbs.

The verbs we use when we talk at Christmas time.

Uh, Christmas has its own unique verbs related

to things like the Christmas tree, gifts, all

of the things that happen at Christmas time.

So in this English lesson, I'll help you learn.

I think over 25 verbs.

Some of them are phrasal verbs.

Fact, I think three quarters of them are phrasal verbs.

Um, but all of the verbs that

we use at this time of year.

So welcome to this English

lesson about Christmas verbs.

To celebrate.

So the English verb to celebrate means that

you do something special for a certain thing.

You can celebrate your birthday.

You celebrate your birthday by having a party.

And maybe people come over and they

give you gifts when you celebrate Christmas.

Christmas, it might mean that you go to church.

Maybe you go to church on Christmas day.

Maybe you celebrate Christmas in a

more secular, non religious way.

Maybe you have people come over for a Christmas party.

Maybe you buy gifts and you

get together with your family.

But this is certainly a time of

year where some people celebrate Christmas.

I celebrate Christmas with my family.

Um, you might be from a different country, or

you might have a different religion, and you might

not celebrate Christmas, or you might celebrate a different

thing at this time of year.

But certainly the verb to celebrate

is a very common verb.

People will say, what are you

going to do to celebrate Christmas?

Oh, I'm going to cook a large

meal and invite my family over.

That is how I celebrate Christmas.

To give and to receive.

So one of the major things that happens at

Christmas is that people buy gifts, other people.

So you give a gift.

That means I buy a gift and then I wrap

that gift and then I give it to another person.

The opposite, of course, would be to receive a gift.

Yesterday I was happy because I

received some gifts at school.

Sometimes students buy their teachers gifts.

And so I was happy because

I received a couple of gifts.

It was peppermint tea and a little gift card.

So that was kind of nice.

So at Christmas you can give a gift, but

at Christmas you might also receive a gift.

Hopefully the arrows help you understand the direction.

When you give a gift, you are the giver.

You are the person who has something and

then you give it to someone else.

If you are the receiver, it means someone has given

you a gift and you get to keep it. Quite fun.

Gift giving is probably a really cool part

of when you celebrate Christmas to count down.

So when you count down, it means you think

about how many minutes or how many hours or

how many days remain before a certain Event.

If you're going on a trip,

you might count down the days.

So you might say to someone, in 10

more days, I'm going on a trip.

Five more days, I'm going on a trip.

People often count down the

number of days until Christmas.

It says here that in four days it will be Christmas.

So tomorrow I would say, oh,

it's three days till Christmas.

It's two days till Christmas.

You might count down the days.

We also do this on New Year's Eve,

by the way, uh, we count down how

many seconds before we yell Happy New Year.

So we're like 10, nine, eight.

We count down the number of seconds to look forward to.

This is a bit of a tricky verb to explain in English.

When you look forward to something, it means

something is going to happen in the future,

and you are very, very happy about that.

I look forward to Christmas Day.

I look forward to having Christmas dinner

with my family, with my brothers and

sisters, look forward to getting gifts.

None of those things have happened yet.

They are going to happen, but

I'm already happy about it.

Now I am looking forward to it.

So when you look forward to something, you are

happy about something that is going to happen.

Maybe you are looking forward to going on a trip.

Maybe you are looking forward to

a time where you have holidays.

Okay, let's talk about the tree.

You might have to go out into the woods or just

go to a Christmas tree farm and cut down a tree.

You'll take an axe or a saw.

This person is using a saw.

And you will find a tree that looks really

nice, and you will cut down the tree.

You will use the saw or the axe to cut down the tree.

So the tree was standing, but after you cut

it down, the tree is no longer standing.

Many people will go and cut down a Christmas tree at

this time of year to put it in their house.

Um, and then they will.

Well, I'll get to the other verbs in a moment.

But they will cut down a tree to

make it seem more festive in their house.

We use the word festive a lot at this time of year.

But if you're like me, you might

just get out the Christmas tree.

We used to go and cut down

a Christmas tree many years ago.

But a few years ago, we bought a fake tree.

So now we get out the Christmas tree.

Our Christmas tree is in a box in

the basement, the room below the house.

So around the end of November or the beginning of December,

we get out the Christmas tree, we go and find the

box, and we bring the Box up to our back room.

And then we.

Yeah, we get it out of the box.

You could actually use the verb twice.

You get the tree out of the basement, and

then you get the tree out of the box.

So, once again, the English verb to get, especially

the phrasal verb versions, have many, many uses.

But we get out our Christmas tree, and then you

either put up or set up your Christmas tree.

And this works for a real Christmas tree.

This works for a fake Christmas tree.

Um, a few weeks ago, we put up Christmas tree.

A few weeks ago, we set up our Christmas tree.

So the act of putting the tree in

the tree stand, so it is vertical.

We would use the verb to put up or to set up.

We set up one Christmas tree.

Some people put up Christmas trees

in every room of their house.

We don't do that.

We simply put up one Christmas tree.

Uh, we set up our Christmas tree in

the back room, and that's where it stays.

One of you asked if I would take a

picture sitting by the tree again this year.

I'll see if I remember to do that on Christmas Eve.

Uh, and I'll post it on the community page.

Then, of course, you decorate.

When you decorate the tree.

Um, some people say trim the tree.

I generally use the verb to decorate.

When you decorate the tree, you go and you

have all ornaments to hang on the tree.

Sometimes you put ribbon or tinsel on the tree.

Maybe there's a little star or angel

on the top of the tree.

Those are all very common things to do.

And then, of course, we usually put lights on the tree.

We call them Christmas lights.

I think in Britain they might call

them fairy lights, but we call them.

I call them Christmas lights.

We put Christmas lights on the

tree when we decorate the tree.

And then, of course, when Christmas is over,

you have to take down the tree.

Um, you can't leave your Christmas tree up all year.

That's just common.

Uh, we usually take our Christmas tree

down on January 1, sometimes January 3.

We usually put up or set up our Christmas tree

the end of November or the beginning of December.

And then we take down our tree.

Uh, and then we put it away to let

it wait for the following year to put off.

So in English, when you put something

off, it means you should be doing

something, but you aren't doing that thing.

Jen and I have put off buying gifts for Christmas.

We've put it off for too long.

We've bought some, but we've put off

finishing buying our gifts for people.

So again, in English, when you put something off it

means if you should do it now, you say, oh,

I'll do it tomorrow, I'll do it on Tuesday.

You put off that thing.

Often when people have something stressful to do or

something hard to do, they will put it off.

They will just not work on it when

they, they should be working on it.

I sometimes put stuff off.

But when you're not feeling well, though, it's okay.

You're allowed to put things off to shop around.

So you might wonder, why not just use the verb to shop?

Will definitely shop at Christmas time.

But the verb to shop around, Let

me see, how would I describe this?

If I needed to buy milk, I would go

to the grocery store and I would buy milk.

I would shop and get milk.

But when you shop around, it's more leisurely.

So today Jen and I are going to shop around.

That means we're going to go

to a lot of different stores.

Means that we won't necessarily buy thing

buy anything at each store we're browsing.

That's another word for it.

So when you shop around, it means you

go to a lot of different stores.

You might buy some things at one store

and not buy something at a different store.

You will just shop around in order to

find the things that you need to buy.

So hopefully that made sense.

To sing along.

So somewhere around the end of November,

radio stations start to play Christmas music.

And sometimes you will sing along.

If it's a song you know as the radio

is playing the song or as you listen to

the song, you sing while the song is playing.

By the way, this is a

great way to practice your English.

You should always sing along.

You don't just have to do this at Christmas time.

Um, but if you are listening to Last Christmas by Wham,

or if you are listening to All I Want for Christmas

by Mariah Carey, you should learn the words and you should

sing along while you are listening to the song.

So when you sing along, it simply means

that you sing while a song is playing.

You sing along to invite.

So around Christmas time, you might be planning to have

a party and you might invite people to the party.

So if I was to have a party, I might say

to my brother, hey, do you want to come over Saturday?

That is the act of me inviting my brother to the party.

Um, at work there might be a Christmas

party and they might say, everyone is invited.

There's a Christmas party on Friday and we

are going to have a small gift exchange.

Please bring a gift that's worth $20.

So you might invite People to a party or you might

be invited to a party, one of the two to wrap.

So this is probably one of the more common verbs, if

not the most common verb, when we talk about Christmas.

If you buy a gift for someone,

you need to wrap that gift.

You need to put wrapping paper around the gift

so they don't know what the gift is.

So quite often Jen and I will

wrap gifts quickly the day of.

We usually give our kids gifts in the evening, sometimes

a day before Christmas or two days before Christmas.

Um, it depends when we can do it.

Um, but we will wrap the gifts.

We usually just use brown paper.

We actually use the same paper that we put on

the bottom of our bouquets that we sell at market.

We use the same brown paper.

It looks a lot like that to wrap

the gifts that we give to our children.

It's just very simple and it's very easy

and cheap to do to set out.

So after you wrap the gifts, you

need to set out the gifts.

You could also use put out.

Like you can put out the gifts.

But Jen and I usually set out the gifts.

That means we take them from our room because we wrap

all the gifts in our bedroom and keep them there.

Hopefully my kids aren't watching this.

Hopefully they don't know the secret location.

Um, but then we will set out the gifts.

We will put the gifts under the Christmas tree

and they're usually there for a few days.

If we are, if we have planned well.

But I think this year they all, they

might all be set out the day of.

We'll see how things go.

We'll set out some gifts later today

because we have most of them.

But I think it will take a while before they will all

be there and then to open a quite a simple verb.

Obviously at Christmas you will open gifts, okay, so you

wrap the gift and then you give the gift.

Person will receive the gift from you

and then they will open the gift.

They will take the wrapping paper off, or if it's

just a simple box, they will take the lid off.

Uh, they will open the gift to pop over.

Sometimes people will pop over to give you a gift.

This is common when it's someone who you

won't be spending time with at Christmas.

A good example would be a neighbourhood neighbour might

pop over and bring you a Christmas gift.

They aren't coming to your Christmas party.

They're not family, they're not

one of your good friends.

There's someone you know well, they might phone you

and say, hey, can I pop over and give

you Something for Christmas, and then they will come.

So when you pop over, it means to visit someone's

house or apartment for a short period of time.

If someone was to pop over, talk to me, I

would probably talk to them at my front door.

I probably wouldn't even invite them in because if they said,

hey, can I pop over for a minute, they don't.

It doesn't mean they want to come in and have

a cup of tea or a cup of coffee. Coffee.

And stay for an hour or two.

It means they might even leave their car running

and they walk up to the front door, talk

for a few minutes, uh, and then leave.

So you might have people pop

over Christmas to light up.

So at Christmas, we put up lights, but we also

sometimes say we want to light up the room.

So you might say, oh, we're going to put Christmas lights

in this part of our house to light up the room.

When you light up a certain area of

your house, it means that you are putting

more lights in, you are making it brighter.

Stores will often light up the front of their

store with Christmas lights at this time of year.

So they will light up the

store to get together, to gather.

So at Christmas, you will often

get together with other people.

We use the verb get with the word together to talk about

any time people are in one spot for a special event.

You might get together with people for your birthday.

You might get together at Christmas with family.

You might get together after work one

day to celebrate a colleague's birthday.

So whenever you are with other people for

an event or to celebrate something, we often

use the verb to get together.

So I'm going to get together with my family tomorrow.

Uh, and then we are going to

get together with Jen's family next week.

So that's the use of the verb,

an actual use of the verb.

In Bob's life, to gather is more of an older word.

I don't really use this verb much

anymore, but people will gather for Christmas.

I think get together is more common.

In fact, get together can also be used as a

noun, like you might go to a get together.

Um, and I think to gather is something you might

read in an older book, like people will gather for

Christmas at the town square or something like that.

But. But yeah, definitely has an older

feel to me, that verb.

This verb has come up in a few lessons lately.

I think this is the third time

in a month when you host.

It means people are coming to your

house, people are coming to your apartment.

You are the person who is planning the party.

So If Jen and I host Christmas, we

make sure our house is really clean.

We decorate a little bit more because people are coming

to our house because we decided host the party.

Um, this year we are not hosting.

We are going to other people's houses.

And I like that a little bit better.

I think it's a little easier, it's easier to

visit someone else than it is to have 20

or 30 people come to your house.

I do like to host.

Like it is fun.

We hosted Christmas last year

for my brothers and sisters.

Uh, but this year it will be

at my sister's place to bake.

So you bake all year round.

It's fun to bake cookies. It's fun.

It's fun to bake things.

But at Christmas you might

bake special Christmas treats.

You might bake shortbread cookies.

That's a very common thing to eat at Christmas.

It's a, a white cookie.

Um, you might make, you might bake gingerbread cookies or

you might bake the pieces for a gingerbread house.

Gingerbread is a spicy kind of cookie, spicy kind

of treat that we have at Christmas time.

You, you're going to try and not

do this, but it's kind of hard.

You tend to overeat at Christmas.

Um, so I tend to overeat at Christmas because

everywhere I go there is a lot of food.

It's fun to eat at Christmas.

You eat things you don't normally eat at

other times of year of the year.

So it's fun to eat, but it's

important to try to not overeat.

This looks yummy.

A bunch of different kinds of cheeses.

The reason people tend to overeat at Christmas

is because we buy more expensive food.

This looks like expensive cheese.

I don't normally buy this type of cheese.

Um, so if I was at a Christmas party and

they had that cheese, I might overeat a little bit.

To send.

You might send Christmas cards.

This has become less common, I think,

as people just send agreed via email.

Um, my friend just sent me a

nice email letter the other day.

Instead of a Christmas card, but you

might send Christmas cards to people.

Um, that was hard to do in

Canada because Canada Post was on strike.

We didn't have mail for almost a month.

Um, but you might decide to send a Christmas card.

Uh, you might listen to music.

It's interesting because we often add the word

to when we're using listen with music.

So when I go for a walk, I listen to

music at Christmas time, I listen to Christmas music.

Um, so it's an important way and

use of the verb to listen.

Um, so I think some of you probably listen

to a lot of English music in order to

learn new English words and to practice your English.

To dress up.

So someone might dress up as Santa Claus.

You might have a very formal Christmas party,

and you might need to dress up.

You might need to wear a tie.

Um, pretty much every Christmas party I

go to is very casual, though.

But if you go to a parade, the last

person in the parade, a Christmas parade, is Santa.

And often there will be a person

who will dress up as Santa.

The person will put on fake beard and put

on a red, I guess a Santa suit.

We would call it would dress up by

putting on a Santa suit to exchange.

I use this verb a few times already.

Sometimes you will exchange gifts.

So as parents, we buy our

kids gifts and give them gifts.

But at work, if you have a

party, you might exchange gifts with someone.

You might have a gift exchange.

That means you're giving one gift

and you're getting one gift.

Um, we actually didn't have a Christmas party at work.

I think it's going to be in January.

It didn't quite work out.

But sometimes we will exchange gifts. So you're.

You're told, buy a gift that anyone would like.

That's about $10 or $20.

And then we have a little gift exchange.

Maybe we play a game to exchange the

gifts, or maybe we actually know who we

are giving the gift to, then to return.

This is the sad part of Christmas.

Sometimes people get a gift that they don't like,

and then after Christmas, they will return the gift.

They will bring it back to the

store to get money for that gift.

So sometimes people buy gifts, they give gifts, and people

don't like the gifts, so they return the gift.

In fact, it's quite common to give someone what's called

a gift receipt gift, Especially if an adult is giving

a gift to another adult and they don't know if

they're going to like it, they might give them a

special receipt from the store called a gift receipt that

allows that person to return the gift.

Um, and then you can also sometimes

return the gift or exchange it.

If someone bought me a shirt or sweater for Christmas and

it was too small, I could go to the store and

return the shirt, might exchange it for the right size.

I would give them the small and they would

give me the large because that actually fits better.

And then this is my last slide.

A lot of people will crash at Christmas.

This is an informal verb that means to sleep or

relax or just watch TV after a busy event.

Okay, so when Jen and I host

Christmas, after everyone leaves, we just crash.

We just lay on the couch, do

nothing for an hour because we're exhausted.

Maybe when you go to a Christmas party and

you talk to people for three hours, you are

really tired afterwards and you go home and crash.

So it simply means to sit down or lay down

on a couch, you might fall asleep, you might just

watch some silly television, but you will crash.

So it's another word for relax, I think.