If you’re learning English and interested in learning a bit about British culture, why not bring some UK traditions into your holiday season?
Let’s start with pantomimes (pantos). These are basically musical comedies that show all over the UK, around December and January. They are usually based on fairy tales or popular children’s stories such as Cinderella, Snow White and The Little Mermaid. Sometimes there are famous people in the main roles, and there’s always a lot of slapstick, silliness, puns and jokes. Officially they’re for children, but adults secretly (or not so secretly) love them too. The last one I saw was with my Grandma when I was about 35. I even bought a fairy wand with coloured lights. If you’d like to get more of an idea of panto, click here.
In terms of Christmas food, you may have already heard of mince pies and Christmas pudding. Living in Belgium, these are two of the things I miss most. I also miss soda bread, Ribena Light, and Engevita flakes, as well as being able to get an appointment with a human at a bank. But these have nothing to do with the holiday season of course.
If you want to have a really traditional Christmas lunch, then you’ll need to cook a chicken with stuffing, gravy, roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings and parsnips, and maybe brussels sprouts if your guests like them (best to check first, given that some people love them and some people hate them with a passion, regardless of whether they’re boiled, roasted or even fried in olive oil with nuts, honey and fairy dust). For desert, along with Christmas pudding and/or mince pies, you might like to try brandy butter or custard (either instant custard or homemade). It has to be said that traditional Christmas lunch is no good for vegetarians, vegans or people who are lactose-intolerant, but there are plenty of alternatives available, thankfully.
Then of course, there is the Christmas TV schedule. I don’t have ITV where I live, so will just focus on telling you about BBC TV instead. For years, some of the most popular holiday season programmes have been The Queen’s Speech (now of course it will be The King’s Speech), Strictly Come Dancing, Eastenders and Wallace and Gromit (famous in many countries). There are also often several films that are shown year after year. Paddington was one of those, but since the Queen’s passing away and the subsequent obsession with Paddington, I suspect most people are a bit fed up with him now and want to see something else.
It is important to say that whilst the UK is traditionally known as a Christian (Church of England) country, it is actually very multi-cultural, especially in big cities. Notably, Chanukah and Kwanzaa also take place around the same time as Christmas. In next week’s blog, I’ll talk more about these.
Add comment
Comments