Advanced English Conversation Lesson #8: Gifts 🎁 🎅 (learn real English w/ subtitles)

- Hello everybody.

This is Jack from tofluency.com along with

- Kate.

- Today in this English lesson this English conversation

we are going to talk about gifts,

and it was your idea to do this topic.

- Yes.

- How would you like to start?

- Sure, well, just a little bit of background

about what's going on in our life right now.

It is almost Thanksgiving,

which means that after Thanksgiving

is kind of the official beginning

of the Christmas season.

The day after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday

because so many people go shopping for Christmas gifts,

and there are sales,

and there's just all sorts of mayhem and chaos,

but we have to get our gifts a little bit early this year

because we're gonna spend the holiday

with your family in the UK.

- Yeah.

- We're doing something a little bit different

for gift giving this year,

which is something that we tried last year,

which was really fun.

- Yeah, it's Secret Santa,

and this is where a group of people come together,

and everyone has to buy a gift for someone else,

but you don't know who is getting your gift,

your present.

- Yeah.

- It's like this lottery isn't it really

who you're going to get a gift for.

We did this last year when we went on vacation to Florida,

and we spent Christmas in Florida.

Who did you have to buy a present for?

- For your mother.

- Right.

- I really enjoyed it because I feel like

I've gotten to know her so well,

and she has spent time at our house

helping us take care of the kids,

especially when they were newborns,

and it was just nice to have an opportunity

to really think about her and think about

what she would like and buy all of these presents for her.

- What did you get her?

- I got her a pair of cozy slippers,

a book about a nurse

getting trained in Yorkshire

around the same time that your mom became a nurse,

so that was really neat,

and I think I got her some jewelry,

and there might have been another thing or two,

but I just loved being able to

really concentrate on one person,

and maybe spend a little bit more money,

and time thinking about it

versus trying to think about five, or 10, or 15 people,

you know, try to budget how much to spend on each of them.

- It was helpful, too, because everyone was traveling.

- Yeah.

- And my family came on the plane,

so they couldn't take a lot of things back with them.

- But they did try to bring a lot of presents,

especially for the kids for Thomas and Emma

because they weren't part of the gift draw,

but I so badly want to talk about

my Secret Santa from this year,

but it's still a secret.

- Yeah, that's right, you can't tell everyone.

- 'Cause they could be watching.

- Yeah, if you're watching this after Christmas

then check out the comments section

because we can leave a comment telling people

what we got everyone.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, and last year, I'll actually just show this.

Last year my mum got me,

and she got this.

- This is amazing.

- This is really cool.

- I don't know can you see the logo in there?

That's the To Fluency logo and that's Jack.

- Yeah,

so she had somebody make that,

an artist near where she lives and it's really cool.

- Is that your favorite present that you've gotten recently?

- I think so, yeah, well, we just decided

to do this conversation,

and I'm a little bit worried

that I'm going to forget what people got me,

and the questions are going to come up.

- Jack, you remember all the presents that I've gotten you.

- Of course, of course.

So I think it's evident that you really like getting gifts.

- I do.

- And you like that whole process.

- I love it.

- This year you got real excited about getting gifts again.

- Yeah, and about the Secret Santa draw

because you were the one person

who hadn't put their name in,

so I was texting you constantly

from just different rooms in the house

while we were home together,

and I was putting the baby down,

or doing some laundry or something,

and "Jack did you enter the drawing yet?

"Did you enter the drawing?"

- Yeah.

It got a little bit too much,

but it was my fault because I should have done that earlier.

- Yeah.

- But then I couldn't find the email,

but anyway, we're gonna do it again this year.

You're real excited about it.

- Yes.

- I, on the other hand, I'm excited,

but I like to leave things to the last minute,

which means wait until just before the deadline

to get something.

- But you do really amazing presents.

- Thank you.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, I think I'm, but I need that immediate deadline

to give me the motivation and the excitement to get gifts.

- Yeah, I'm the same way when it's something

that I'm not really excited about,

but when it's something that I'm really excited about

I can't do it fast enough,

and I just love going shopping for other people

that I love, yeah.

- You do most of it online now, right?

- Yes, I do, and I like shopping in person better

because I like to wander through a shop,

and, you know, I like to feel things,

and talk to people and to come up with it,

but that's just not so practical with a kid.

- Yeah, it's a lot easier online.

- It is, yeah.

- I tend to do online, although, I might do,

this year I might get the gift in Manchester.

- Oh, yeah, that's a really good idea

because you could also discreetly ask

about the person that you have.

- You were going to say the name.

- And what the person might like.

This is gonna be dangerous.

- I know it is, it is.

- Do you like shopping for other people?

- I do. - You do?

- Yeah, I do.

- This surprises me, go on.

- The problem is I like to get people,

and I like to receive gifts that are practical.

- Right.

- You're more whimsical.

- I am. - Which means?

- Anything that's like delightful and a little bit strange,

and not necessarily practical I love that.

- What's an example of a whimsical gift?

- Just anything that's not strictly necessary.

I feel like that tray

is on the border of something whimsical,

even though you really like it

because, I mean, it's hand-painted, it's artistic,

it's not something that you need to have.

- Yeah.

- But also things that have

like imaginary quality to them are interesting,

and I love this time of year

because it is so full of things that are whimsical.

- Definitely.

- Like houses made out of cookies.

There's no other time of year that you see that,

and I love it.

- Yeah, that an interesting thing.

I'll leave a link in the description,

so you know what we're talking about.

You can explain briefly the houses made out of.

- Yeah, gingerbread houses.

- Gingerbread houses.

- We actually live in a town here in Nashville

where they have a huge gingerbread display,

and contest at a local hotel,

and it is just incredibly elaborate.

I think we went one year.

- I've never been.

- Maybe we should make it a goal to go this year.

- Yeah, well, I just went to the holiday parade,

which was yesterday, you were sick.

- I was, yeah, feeling under the weather.

- It was great it was so much fun.

The different floats that go down the road,

marching bands play music,

and a lot of local businesses do this.

- That's amazing, and I feel like we're at an age too

where our son is four and he's starting

to understand the excitement and the anticipation.

Last year you could tell him that something was happening,

and you'd say in two weeks it's gonna be this holiday,

or this is gonna happen and he would think

that it would be happening in the next minute,

so it was hard to build that anticipation,

and hard to kind of explain the traditions,

and what would happen and this year

I think he's really gonna get it.

He and his friends have been

talking a lot about Santa Clause,

which is a big tradition

that we are gonna keep doing with him.

- Yeah, because

you just don't know if you're going to do that,

but then it's impossible to ignore it.

In the UK people tend to say Father Christmas.

- Okay.

- Yeah, over Santa Claus.

When did you realize and for children that are watching

maybe turn this off.

- Don't watch, yeah.

- When did you realize Santa Clause wasn't real?

- I think it was probably when I was

around six or seven maybe,

or I had a strong suspicion that he wasn't real,

but I remember as a kid coming to this realization,

and then thinking hold on a second.

I have a really good thing going here.

I just put out a plate of cookies and a stocking,

and it gets filled with presents.

I don't need to tell my parents

that I don't believe in Santa Clause anymore.

- Yeah, it was just a really cool thing.

- Yeah, this is a great thing.

I think that my mother actually really struggled

to shop as Santa Clause for us when we were little

because you know my mother she is very practical.

- Yeah, she is.

- She's very practical and so our stockings

would be filled with like pencils and socks.

- We always had a tangerine in our stocking.

- That's interesting.

- Yeah, always.

- That seems to classic and old-fashioned.

I feel like now there's a lot of pressure

to really go way over the top like a tangerine

is not something that you go,

oh, wow, this is such a special treat.

- Going back to Santa I remember one year

my cousins always came to our house for Christmas.

I knew Santa wasn't real, you know,

I was like I'm getting older now.

- How old were you?

- I can't remember, but anyway, so my mum said,

"Don't ruin it for Patrick."

Patrick is my cousin who is about two years younger,

so Patrick came in and I said to him like,

"So what's Santa going to get you this year?"

And Patrick just said, "He's not real."

He was like, well, okay.

- My mom told this story.

I have cousins that are older than me

maybe like 10 years older or so.

It was actually at my parent's house

where my cousin Nathan

found out that Santa Claus wasn't real

because his family had always done this elaborate thing

with a plate of cookies,

and Santa would leave a lot of crumbs,

and, you know, a smudge on the milk glass,

or something like that so my parents,

this was before they had kids were so eager

to keep that magic alive,

and have this wonderful experience

where Santa Clause would find him at their house

while they were visiting and bring him presents,

so they set everything up all perfectly

with the crumbs on the plate,

and the milk exactly the way that it should be

so that he would know that Santa had found him,

and it was the same Santa and Santa was real,

and Santa goes all over the world and all of that,

and then we had a Golden Retriever

at the time named Misty.

Of course, a plate of cookie crumbs and a milk glass

Misty came and cleaned it completely,

and the next morning when my cousin woke up

he saw that there were presents in the stocking from Santa,

but that the plate was completely clean,

and he burst into tears and said,

"I knew it, Santa wasn't real.

"It's not the same as it would be at home."

The ironic thing was that they had left all the crumbs,

and done all the work, but Misty got to it.

- Wow.

Wow.

- I know, I know.

- It's quite upsetting isn't it?

- It is, you just want them to have

that magical experience of believing that

the universe will just bring them presents.

- Only if they're good though.

- Well, that's theoretically what happens.

I couldn't imagine

our son at four years' old

doing something so naughty that we wouldn't.

- Well, you use it for leverage don't you?

- Yeah, you're like it's Christmas season, listen.

- Exactly, yeah, and one more story about Santa.

I remember being in the school playground,

and we were all talking about Santa,

and we were lining up to go inside.

There was one kid who just said Santa wasn't real,

but no one believed him,

We were just arguing with him and saying,

of course he's real, of course he's real.

- How else would this happen?

- Yeah, but he said he overhead

his parents talking about it.

- Oh, now that we're parents the pressure is on.

- Yeah, I know because you have to keep up that whole thing.

Going back to gifts

when it was your birthday

did you prefer a gift or money?

- I think a gift every time because

I grew up in a way that was a little bit sheltered.

I didn't have that many things

that I could practically spend money on,

and there was a lot of pressure, too, to save the money.

- Right, yeah, that's interesting.

- I never felt that when I got money

that it was mine to spend,

so if I had a gift than it would be more.

- Yeah, I preferred the money, definitely.

- What did you like to do with it?

- Well, it depended on the age,

but at times it was like wrestling stickers,

football stickers.

- I would not want any of those things, no.

- No? - Shockingly.

- You didn't get wrestling stickers.

- I didn't get wrestling stickers.

- Yeah, football stickers, wrestling stickers.

I can't really remember what else I got.

I went through a stage of saving money, too.

I used to like saving money.

My sister and I had these little piggy banks,

which were actual piggies.

We got into a little bit of a debate,

an argument when we were older because

they came from the bank and they became collector's items,

and they were worth a little bit of money,

so we used to argue about who had which one.

I swear I had that little piggy,

but Rebecca thought that she had it.

Yeah, I went through a stage of saving money,

and then looking back I probably just spent it

on whatever was popular back then.

- At the time, you were very trendy.

- Computer games.

Trendy? - Yeah, you were.

You were into all the trends.

- Yeah, I think looking back you wouldn't call me trendy,

but that was what was popular at the time.

- Yeah, I mean, would you be trendy by today's standards?

No, I feel like right now people who were that age

would have, you know, brightly colored hair,

and really fashionable kind of cutting edge clothes,

and we definitely didn't have any of that.

I think that probably when I was younger

they just started coming out with nail polish

that wasn't like red and pink,

and that was a really big deal,

and everybody wanted to have blue nail polish

that was like the trendiest thing

that you could possibly have.

I actually sent my dad to get "cool" nail polish

for a friend's birthday party,

and he got like a brown color,

and it was so disappointing

because it's like, here have this nail polish it's so cool,

but it was brown,

and her big brother made fun of me.

- I was thinking about the color brown the other day

because no one says, oh, brown's my favorite color.

Wrapping gifts.

- Yes.

- Wow, can you sense the excitement?

I don't like wrapping presents.

I used to love it, I used to love it,

but now I just don't like doing it, but you really.

- I don't really like wrapping gifts either.

Just kidding, I love it.

- Yeah, you do.

- I do, yeah.

- What is the process for you

of having a present and giving it to someone?

What do you do to that present?

- To that present?

- To that gift or present?

- What do I do to it?

I have a closet and a shelf with wrapping paper as you know.

The supplies dwindled down a lot when we moved,

so we had to give some presents

that were not ideally wrapped for the last year,

you know, I would like wrap them up in newspaper

like an old paper bag, but that is changing.

We're back to where we should be

so I have a book of patterned paper,

and I have the rolls of wrapping paper.

I have gift bags, I have sparkly tissue paper,

I have bows, so it just depends on the shape of the present.

A lot of times we go with the gift bag

because it's easier,

but there's something very pleasing

about perfectly wrapping something

that's rectangular and folding in the edges.

- Yeah.

That type of thing I do like.

- You do?

- Well, tolerate.

I think when it comes down to

when you say putting tissue paper in as well,

wrapping it with a ribbon,

and then attaching the card in the right way

I just get it wrong every time,

therefore, I don't really like doing it.

- There is this really funny scene in Love Actually

where Rowan Atkinson is wrapping up a present

in the department store,

and he's sprinkling in confetti.

It's really awkward because the character

doesn't want him to be spending time

he's trying to do it subtly

because he shouldn't be buying this present,

and instead he's just going all out.

I feel like that is me every time

that we're late to go to a birthday party,

and I want to wrap the present,

and you're saying, "Come on let's go."

- Yeah, definitely.

- And I'm throwing in glitter and tissue paper,

and trying to find the perfect thing,

and the right card, but yeah, I don't know,

it does get discouraging sometimes because you know

it's all just gonna go in the trash, but, yeah.

- Cool, shall we wrap it up?

- Oh, yeah, sure, like I could wrap it up?

- Okay, well, we've talk about a lot in this one.

- Yeah, and I could still talk about this all day.

- Yeah, so I was making mental notes throughout,

but I'm gonna go through this video,

and leave all the words and phrases that we used below.

You'll find all those words,

and phrases in the description,

and, oh, time for Kate's question.

- Yes, and you might have some too.

My question is

hold on, let me think,

what is your favorite gift

that you have given or received,

and do you have any interesting

holiday traditions where you are?

- Very cool, yeah, so a favorite gift

that you have given someone or received,

and holiday traditions.

- Yeah.

- Fantastic, okay, well, thank you so much for watching.

If you have enjoyed this then please like and share,

and also be sure to check out my free book

The 5-Step Plan for English Fluency.

- There's also something that I would like to mention

because it has been so amazing.

Sometimes you'll get presents from people

who are in your community,

or who you've worked with through your programs.

It just means so much to us.

We're not asking for presents.

Please don't feel that you have to send anything,

but for the people who have taken the time and effort

to send something thoughtful

like that's really touched our hearts in a big way.

- Oh, definitely, yeah, yeah, well, good, okay, bye for now.

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