Christmas Day

Hello everyone and welcome back to EnglishPod.

My name is Marco.

My name is Catherine and we are your English language guides here at EnglishPod.

That's right and today we're going to be taking you to Christmas morning.

It's Christmas Day.

Oh, one of the best times of the year.

You wake up, you smell the good smell of delicious eggs and bacon and there's presents.

Yeah, I guess that's when you're a kid though.

I guess when you're an adult, do you really get excited when you wake up for Christmas?

Hell yeah.

Sure do.

Yeah, I sure do.

I love Christmas morning even as an adult.

Especially I think because of the special breakfast you get like pancakes, scrambled

eggs.

But anyways, we're going to be taking a look at a situation here where a kid is opening

Christmas presents and we're preparing a meal for Christmas because that day people are

going to come over.

So let's listen to this dialogue for the first time.

Dad, dad, dad, wake up.

It's Christmas.

Timmy, it's too early for this.

Look, it's six in the morning.

Go back to bed.

No way.

Santa already came and left all our presents.

Can we go open them, please, please?

Of course we can, honey.

Bill, come on, get dressed.

Fine.

Not like Santa brought me any gifts.

Bill, honestly, you can be such a grouch sometimes.

Look at all these presents under the Christmas tree.

Awesome.

All right, Timmy, knock yourself out.

We should get ready and head to the market to buy everything for Christmas dinner tonight.

Yeah, you're right.

It's the first time we're hosting Christmas dinner at our house, so everything has to

be perfect.

I got the list right here.

Ham, turkey, mashed potatoes, ingredients for the gravy, and of course, yams.

My dad offered to bring the eggnog, so we should be set.

All right, we're back.

So there were a couple of different and interesting words there, so let's take a look at them

now in Language Takeaway.

Language Takeaway.

Okay, this first word is not a very happy word.

It's a word that we try not to use too much around the Christmas season, but sometimes

you're just tired of people because the holidays is all about people and doing stuff.

Someone who is not being very happy, someone who's a little bit grumpy is called a grouch.

Okay, so a person that's not very happy, not very friendly is a grouch.

I don't want to open presents.

This is stupid.

Okay, that's a grouch.

Okay, so a person is a grouch, or you can act like a grouch, or be a grouch.

Don't be a grouch!

All right.

And, well, they were talking about heading to the market to buy something for dinner,

so to head to.

Okay, to head to is a way to say to go towards some place or to go somewhere.

All right, so if I'm driving my car and you ask me where I'm going, I'm saying,

oh, I'm heading to the bank.

Right, so to head to means to be on your way somewhere, I'm going somewhere.

It's a way to say that you're in the process of going.

You can't say, next year I will head to Alaska.

It doesn't make as much sense.

You usually say, I'm heading to the bank, or let's head to the market.

And well, they were talking about heading to the market because they are hosting Christmas

dinner, so to host.

To host is a very important holiday term.

It's a verb, you do it, and it means that you are the person who has the special dinner

and your friends and family, they come to your house.

Okay, so we could say, this Christmas, I'm hosting the dinner at my house.

So, I want everyone to come to my house and eat.

All right, and it can also be a noun, right?

You can say, I am a host.

Exactly.

I'm the host of this dinner.

Right, and it doesn't have to be holidays either.

You could say, hey, Marco, how about you host a dinner next week?

I'll come.

Right, okay.

I'll bring wine.

All right, so to host a dinner or to host a party, etc.

And our fourth word for language takeaway is probably the most popular drink during

the Christmas season, eggnog.

Okay, it sounds kind of disgusting.

Yeah, a drink with egg.

But it's a very popular creamy eggy drink.

It's very thick and it's cream colored.

And normally, you add a little bit of rum.

Okay, so it's alcoholic.

And you drink it warm and it's kind of just a thick, warm alcoholic beverage that's very

very popular and my dad loves it.

During Christmas, right?

During Christmas.

You don't have it like any other day.

No, you wouldn't want to.

It's too heavy.

But it's very very popular like the days before Christmas and on Christmas.

Okay, so eggnog.

Very good.

So I think we should take a look at the dialogue again and we'll be back soon with Fluency

Builder.

Dad, dad, dad.

Wake up.

It's Christmas.

Timmy, Timmy, Timmy.

Timmy, Timmy.

Timmy, Timmy.

Timmy, Timmy.

Timmy, Timmy.

Timmy, Timmy.

Timmy, Timmy.

As a child William used to be such a spendthrift

on Christmas Sunflowers.

He used to rub centrally into Santa's shirt, nothing more.

Now the trollis all of a sudden complaining about the Christmas Sunflowers getting cooked

up in the sun.

We used to need New Year's sunflowers but there weren't any Favorites and Timmy was

praying for his brother to cook up a perfect one.

And if you lied to Santa then you must have failed.

People go crazy to distribute gifts.

Yeah, well now each has a Santa and a board and you remember you're Stu for now and suddenly

Awesome!

Alright, Timmy, knock yourself out.

We should get ready and head to the market to buy everything for Christmas dinner tonight.

Yeah, you're right.

It's the first time we're hosting Christmas dinner at our house, so everything has to

be perfect.

I've got the list right here.

Ham, turkey, mashed potatoes, ingredients for the gravy, and of course, yams.

My dad offered to bring the eggnog, so we should be set.

Alright, we're back, so now let's take a look at a couple of phrases on Fluency Builder.

Fluency Builder.

Okay, so this first phrase is a phrase that I often heard as a child because I never wanted

to go to sleep.

So I'd go downstairs and my parents would say, Catherine, go back to bed.

Go back to bed.

Okay, go back to bed.

So this is just a very common colloquial spoken way of saying, go back to sleep.

Go to sleep.

Be awake.

So you can say, go to sleep, or you can say, go to bed, or if somebody has gotten out of

bed, you say, go back to bed.

Exactly, and so parents often use this with their kids because they want their kids to

sleep.

You can also say it about someone who's up at night worrying, and you say, come on, go

back to bed.

Go to sleep.

Relax.

Okay, and then we also saw this phrase, knock yourself out.

Alright, Timmy, knock yourself out.

So what is this?

Knock yourself out.

Well, I'm not really sure where this phrase comes from.

I mean, to knock is like to knock on a door, right?

But to knock yourself out, if I think about it, it probably means that you hit yourself

in the head and you fall over.

But the real meaning of this is, go have fun.

Have as much fun as you can have.

Right, have as much fun as you want.

Go knock yourself out.

So the parent is saying, hey, Timmy, go have as much fun as you want.

Just go do it.

Enjoy yourself.

Yeah, like go open all these presents.

Have all the fun you want.

Alright, and then we saw another phrase when they finished talking about dinner and all

the things they have to buy.

They said, we should be set.

We should be set or we are set.

Well, this is funny because she says, well, my dad's going to bring the eggnog, so we

should be set, which means we should have everything we need.

So we don't need anything else.

We're ready.

Everything is good.

Exactly.

So we can say, we are set.

I'm set.

It's a way to say, are you ready?

Are you prepared?

Do you have everything you need?

So I often use this when I'm going on a trip.

Are you set?

Did you pack everything?

Are you all set?

Are you all set?

Yeah.

Alright.

I finished packing.

I'm all set.

I'm ready to go.

All set and ready to go.

Alright.

Okay, so some interesting phrases there as well.

Let's look at our dialogue for the last time.

Dad, dad, dad, wake up.

It's Christmas.

Timmy, it's too early for this.

Look, it's six in the morning.

Go back to bed.

No way.

Santa already came and left all our presents.

Can we go open them, please?

Please?

Of course we can, honey.

Bill, come on, get dressed.

Fine.

Not like Santa brought me any gifts.

Bill, honestly, you can be such a grouch sometimes.

Look at all these presents under the Christmas tree.

Awesome.

Alright, Timmy, knock yourself out.

We should get ready and head to the market to buy everything for Christmas dinner tonight.

Yeah, you're right.

It's the first time we're hosting Christmas dinner at our house, so everything has to

be perfect.

I've got the list right here.

Ham, turkey, mashed potatoes, ingredients for the gravy, and of course, yams.

My dad offered to bring the eggnog, so we should be set.

Alright, we're back.

As you mentioned, Christmas morning is great.

You open presents and breakfast.

It's a time to be together with your parents, your family, but as in this case, you can

be a little bit of a grouch because you're just kind of tired because you had Thanksgiving

and November and then Christmas, and now you're having New Year's, so you're kind of just

like, ugh.

The holiday season can be exhausting, and I know a lot of families have a special dinner

on the 24th.

That's Christmas Eve, and then by the time it's Christmas Day, the 25th, you're exhausted,

you didn't get any sleep, you might have had too much to drink last night, and so it can

be very tiring.

Also, because the kids always get up way too early, like 6 o'clock.

Right, to open their presents, right?

And then they'll be playing with their toys all day, and you'll have a headache.

But it's a great season to spend time with the family, and we want to know how you spend

your Christmas Eve and your Christmas morning, so why don't you come to our website EnglishPod.com

and leave your questions and comments there as well.

We're looking forward to hearing from you.

Again, happy holiday season, and until next time.

Bye.

энергetic guitar music