WHAT TO SAY at Christmas! 🎄 Common Expressions

Hey there! I'm Emma from mmmEnglish!

So Christmas is just around the corner and

in this lesson, I'll focus on some common English

expressions and vocabulary

that you'll hear at this time of year.

The Christmas holiday is celebrated so differently

around the world.

For some, it's a religious celebration. For others,

it's just a cultural celebration but an important one.

Most of you know that here in Australia we celebrate

Christmas a little differently.

It's not the quintessential white Christmas

that you imagine.

It's summer, it's lovely and warm.

We spend days at the beach over our holidays

and the food that we eat is a little less traditional.

We eat prawns and salads and cold ham and

all of those delicious things.

All of my students in South America,

Southeast Asia and even parts of Africa.

I mean, we definitely do things a little differently

down in the southern hemisphere, right?

If you celebrate Christmas in summer,

I want to hear about your traditions in the comments.

How do you and your family celebrate?

What's your favourite thing to do on Christmas Day?

Now for those of you who celebrate a more traditional,

white Christmas, you probably can't even imagine

Christmas in summer, right? A hot Christmas.

It must sound completely crazy to you.

And if you don't celebrate Christmas at all,

you've probably got another similar holiday

where you eat lots of delicious food with the people

that you love and maybe you share gifts with each other

so I'd love to hear about your celebrations as well.

If you've got time, add a quick description

into the comments, I'd love to read about it.

But back to Christmas.

There are some tricky words and expressions that are

used at Christmas time in English

so in this lesson we'll focus on how you can

say them confidently.

You'll practise how to wish someone a Merry Christmas.

You'll find out what a Kris Kringle is and

I'll help you to get in the Christmas spirit.

I'm sure that you've heard this greeting before,

it's probably the most

famous Christmas expression there is.

But so often, it's mispronounced by my English students

'merry' could be a little tricky for you if your native

language is Thai, Vietnamese or another

Asian language, because of that /r/ consonant sound.

So with the consonant, make sure that the tip of your

tongue is not touching anything

and that it's pushed up in the middle and pulling back

from the front of your mouth.

The edges of your tongue can touch the top inside teeth

Now 'Christmas' is also tricky because the T is silent.

Most native speakers just simply say

And the letter A here is unstressed

so you'll just hear it as the schwa sound.

It's flat, it's low in pitch.

If you're not sure what the schwa sound is,

then check out this lesson here that I made all about it

but let's try 'Christmas' together

Forget about that T sound in there,

you need to be a little lazy with the A.

Listen to the intonation there.

In most English-speaking countries, you'll hear

'Merry Christmas' and 'Happy Christmas'.

Both are good options.

The night before Christmas is also an important day.

Depending on the culture, some people actually eat their

big family Christmas meal on Christmas Eve

and not on Christmas Day.

And some cultures open their presents

on Christmas Eve.

But more importantly,

for many children around the world,

Christmas Eve is the time when Santa Claus comes

flying to their house with his sleigh and his reindeer

to leave Christmas presents under the Christmas tree.

It's a big night and it's also hard to pronounce.

The consonant sound at the end of 'Christmas'

links to the vowel sound at the start of 'Eve'

and the two words are usually pronounced as if

they were one big word and remember

don't pronounce that T.

And don't forget that final /v/ consonant at the end.

What on earth is that?

Well let's start with Santa,

you probably know him, right? This guy.

Also known as Santa Claus.

Yeah, in English that word is pronounced

just like 'claws' and 'clause'.

He's also known as Father Christmas.

He's known as Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick

and Kris Kringle in some countries

and of all of those names,

I think the hardest to pronounce is Kris Kringle.

So saying two words that begin with the /kr/

consonant cluster it's kind of like a tongue twister.

It really makes the muscles in your mouth work.

And don't forget that tiny little schwa sound there

in the syllabic consonant.

So it's an unstressed second syllable.

In some accents it's syllabic

otherwise there's a tiny little schwa sound in there.

This one might take a little bit of getting used to

but there's no time like the present.

Repeat after me.

It's like a tongue twister. How fast can you say it

without messing it up?

Now for me in Australia, Kris Kringle is actually

an activity played at Christmas time

especially amongst big groups of friends

or colleagues at work.

So it's a gift-swapping game. It's quite popular.

You write everybody's name on a small piece of paper

and put it into a hat or a bucket.

Then you choose one of the pieces of paper

without looking

and the person on this piece of paper is the one that

you have to buy a Christmas present for.

So you can't tell anyone who you're buying

your present for and there's usually an amount of money

that everyone agrees to spend so the presents

are all of the same value.

And there's actually a lot of different variations

on this game depending on where you are in the

English-speaking world.

It might also be called Secret Santa.

If you're in America, I think it's called Yankee Swap

or White Elephant, so there are lots of games where

everyone brings a present to a party and then you know

it's a bit of fun sharing those presents around.

But sometimes there's slightly different rules,

so if you do ever get invited to one of these

games at Christmas,

then make sure you just double-check the rules.

Now that we're on the topic of presents and gifts,

do you have anything special on your

Christmas wish list this year?

We usually exchange gifts at Christmas time and your

wish list is a list of all of the things

that you hope to receive.

Now most commonly this is done by children,

particularly because they write their list of gifts

they want to receive from Santa.

Now I'm wondering if you have a Christmas wish list.

If you do, what's on it?

For me, I would really like a pretty beach umbrella

and some new beach chairs,

that's what's on my Christmas list.

Fingers crossed that Santa sees that this year.

So this is a pronunciation nightmare

if you have trouble with the

and sounds.

For such a short phrase it's actually pretty tough to say

especially at the ends of these words.

So for the sound, your lips need to flare outwards.

And your tongue is pulling a little back

but your teeth are not quite touching

and of course, it's an unvoiced sound

so the air is pushing through your mouth.

The -st consonants at the end of 'list'

might also be tricky for you because it's a

cluster of consonants.

So the /s/ the /t/ sounds need to come together, right?

So you can probably make those sounds separately

but what about if you push them together?

Make sure that I can hear that T, please.

I want to hear that air stop.

Okay now put it all together.

That's another tongue twister

for you to practise this week Christmas!

Challenge yourself to say that as many times

as possible without messing that up!

Now you might also hear people saying that they are

in the Christmas spirit.

Someone who is in the Christmas spirit is feeling

excited and really happy about the holidays,

excited about seeing friends and family and

decorating the house and planning celebrations.

So you can use this expression when someone is

doing an action that's particularly generous or giving

like if a colleague brought some mince pies

to share with everyone at work to celebrate Christmas.

What a generous gesture!

You could say "You're in the Christmas spirit!"

If you don't know what mince pies are, I made a video

about it here a couple of Christmases ago.

Now since Christmas ends in the /s/ consonant,

the same sound that 'spirit' starts with,

then you can link those two sounds together

so the whole phrase sounds more like one word.

This sounds like Christmas spirit.

So those two consonant sounds, because they're the

same, we don't need to pronounce them twice.

They just pull together.

But what if you're not in the Christmas spirit?

I'm sure some of you might know someone who

can be quite grumpy at Christmas. They don't really like

that time of year. They don't like Christmas

and we call those people Scrooges

in an affectionate way. A Scrooge.

So the word 'Scrooge' is actually the name of a

really grumpy man in a famous Christmas story called

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

In the story, the main character, Scrooge, hates

everything about Christmas and he does his best to

avoid all of the celebrating,

all of the happiness of the holidays.

Now over time, it's become really common to call

anyone who is anti-Christmas, who doesn't really like

Christmas, a Scrooge.

Are you a Christmas Scrooge?

It's okay, you can admit it!

Sometimes I'm a bit of a Scrooge.

So to say this word is a little challenging.

It's an invented name so it's a bit of a strange word

but you'll hear it all the time at this time of year.

Make sure you practise the /sk/ consonant cluster

on its own before you even think about adding

the rest of it.

So hear that sound tapping at the back of my mouth

playing with that air as it's coming through.

Then you can add

So there's that sound.

Everything's pretty tight in my mouth there.

So we end up with that

shape from the vowel sound.

So then you need to add the consonant sound

like in 'jam'

Now that you can say the name, you can tell someone

"Come on! Don't be such a Scrooge!"

Remember, it's usually meant as an affectionate insult,

if that's possible. It's not really meant to be rude.

Usually people who are Scrooges are

completely okay about it, they accept it.

So do you know anyone who's a Christmas Scrooge?

Maybe don't name them in the comments

but share your stories about them if you want.

We already know that 'merry' is a synonym for happy

so it can also mean lively, cheerful and even

a little bit drunk. You're happily drunk.

So when it comes to Christmas parties and celebrations

usually the more the merrier.

The more people that come, the happier

and the more fun the event will be.

You can use this expression to say everyone's welcome

and although this expression is a way

to invite people to a Christmas party,

especially to say, you know,

bring your friends and family too

but this expression is common not only at Christmas.

You can use it at any time when you're inviting people

to join in an activity.

Everyone's welcome.

So let's say this one a few times together.

Both of these words are unstressed, so they reduce

down and become the schwa sound.

The other words are content words. They're stressed

and we hear them really clearly.

Stress that vowel sound there.

In my accent, you don't hear the

consonant sound at the end.

Well hopefully this lesson helped you to get

in the Christmas spirit.

In English-speaking countries

and in lots of other countries around the world,

this is such a special time of year.

So if you're celebrating

I wish you a very Merry Christmas!

Now stick around for some extra practice

coming up in just a moment but before we get there

make sure you subscribe to the mmmEnglish family

here on YouTube, if you haven't already.

The more the merrier!

Click that red button right there.

Now let's go practise!

Hi.

Hey!

What are you up to?

I am just finishing some last-minute

Christmas wrapping.

Presents!

Yes a few last presents to wrap before the big day.

Who are your presents for?

Mostly for friends actually, I'm not spending Christmas

with my family this year so

most of these presents are for my friends.

This year I'm having a pretty quiet one actually.

I'm not going back to Melbourne. Normally I fly home

to Melbourne where all of my family lives.

This year I'm not. My family's coming over to visit me

in Perth after New Year's so

I'm just having a really quiet relaxed Christmas this year

and not doing a lot of the crazy running around

and preparing, organising everything that

usually happens.

Well normally I am back in Melbourne and my family,

I have quite a big family,

all of my cousins and my aunties and uncles

and my grandparents are usually there.

And so we have a big lunch or a big dinner and

sort of give each other presents and

it's a really good opportunity to catch up because

now all of my cousins have grown up,

we're all adults, we don't see each other that much

so it's a really great chance to catch up.

I'm actually really glad that you asked that question

because it's one that comes up all the time

around this time of year, particularly in English-speaking

countries where everyone is celebrating Christmas

or at least everyone gets

time off work at that time of year.

So even if you're not celebrating Christmas

or you don't really, you know, believe in Christmas

and you don't sort of spend time celebrating

at that time of year,

it's still a time when you get days off work and you know

here in Australia, at least, it's really great weather.

Everyone really makes the most of that opportunity to

you know, catch up, with family or friends

and that kind of thing.

So when you get asked this question:

"What are you doing at Christmas? or

"Have you got any plans at Christmas?"

It can be asked in so many different ways.

There are so many different

questions that can get asked

but actually, the answer to all of them

is exactly the same.

So when you get asked this question, it's not so much

specifically what you're doing on Christmas Day

even if, you know, you're not actually celebrating.

It's talking about this period of time

around the Christmas holidays so it could be

you know, from anywhere around the 21st of December

through to the 2nd or 3rd of January, depending on

you know, when the public holidays are.

This time of year, it's because everyone's got

time off work, they're, you know, often going on holidays

or doing special things

whether they're related to Christmas or not

so if you don't celebrate Christmas, you know,

it's easy to answer this question as well.

You can simply say

or

but we're doing this instead or we're going to visit family

or we're taking advantage of the holidays

and we're going to Italy.

Something like that.

So even if you don't celebrate Christmas,

you can easily answer this question,

you just need to have a couple of ideas

at the ready.

Some of the things you might say are

where you're going,

who you're doing it with,

whether it's friends or family,

whether it's a big celebration or not, whether it's

low key or you're having a quiet one like me.

And also, you know, what your plans are,

what types of things you'll be doing,

what activities you'll be doing,

whether you're staying at home, whether you're

travelling to somewhere else.

So any of these ideas are things that you can talk about

when you answer that question

and if you're like me this year

and you're doing something a little different to what

you usually do then answering this question

by contrasting or comparing the way that you

usually celebrate with what you're doing this year is

also the perfect way to answer this question.

So for me, I usually fly home and I visit my family

and we have a big Christmas celebration

but this year I'm having a quiet one

and my family are actually coming to visit me.

So it's a little different and I can talk about the

difference in that answer.

So I'm curious,

what have you got planned this Christmas?

What are you doing with your family over the holidays?

I'm really interested to find out.

I'm sure we have completely different ways

of celebrating all around the world

but I want you to try and answer that question

using the tips and advice that I gave

during this little extra bonus section of this lesson

so try and tell me what you're doing,

where you're doing it, who you're doing it with,

what you're eating,

if you're celebrating - particularly if you're celebrating

in a religious way. If you're not celebrating,

tell me what you'll be doing instead

or what you usually do at this time of year.

I'm really interested to find out.

Well I hope that you enjoyed that lesson

and that you've got a few new expressions to use

this year at Christmas time.

If you enjoyed this lesson then make sure you subscribe

to the mmmEnglish channel by clicking that red button

just down there.

If you want to keep watching some more Christmas

related videos, I've got a few others right here.

So I'll see you in the next lesson!