Yes, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! And if you are in a country where Christianity is the dominant religion you will certainly see signs of it everywhere you go! Now, I don’t want to take the fun out of what is a really good holiday but Christmas is not everything that it seems to be.

You may know it as one of the most important Christian festivals celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ but, like a lot of other festivals, there is a healthy influence from pre-Christian pagan festivals and a very good injection of pure capitalism into the mix that we now know as Christmas.

Firstly, although December 25th is marked as the day that Jesus Christ was born it is also the day when the most important gods in the religions of Ishtar and Mithra had their birthdays. The Romans also had important winter festivals including the Saturnalia – apparently, when the Romans were being converted to Christianity they were not keen to give up their winter festivals and carried them through into the new religion.

And how about the christmas tree found in nearly every English speaking home during the Christmas period – apparently this is a Christianization of a pagan tradition celebrated during the Winter Solstice. The rituals included the use of evergreen bough

s and of pagan tree worship.

Christmas cards and Christmas decorations, which now give the holiday its distinctive character, were only invented in the 19th century and seem to have kicked off the commercialization of Christmas. Which brings me pretty much to the dominant, and perhaps least attractive, aspect of Christmas which is that it has become very big business and there is now a lot more business in Christmas and perhaps a lot less of the original celebration of giving, generosity, sharing and hope than was originally the case.And talk of ‘sharing and giving‘ brings me to our Christmas present to you… our readers and listeners, members and students. English4Today has produced an audio and text e-book of Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol for you to use online or download, free of charge, in a Windows desktop software version. What I personally like about Dickens’ Christmas story is that it reminds us in a very positive way of what we should be celebrating at this time of the year – all of us, no matter what religious faith we follow or don’t follow – the spirit of caring, sharing and giving.

If you’d like to use the online version or download the software come back to this blog on Monday when the download links will be published.

I’ll try and keep my own words in mind when my family meets for the traditional Christmas dinner which, as many listeners will know, is not always a moment of Peace and Goodwill Amongst Men and often veers dangerously close to open warfare.

All of that said, it’s a great time of year and any holiday has to be a good holiday! Here’s a list of vocabulary items associated with Christmas for any of you who are breaking into it for the first time.

Christmas Vocabulary

Advent

The month leading up to Christmas

angel

A messenger of God. Often depicted as a beautiful human-like being with wings and white robes.

Bethlehem

The small town in the Middle East believed to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ

christmas stocking

In some countries children hand stockings (long socks) at the end of their bed or in front of the fire for Santa to fill with presents.

chimney

A vertical opening in a house from the fireplace that allows smoke to escape. Santa or Father Christmas is said to come down the chimney with gifts for the children.

Christ

The title of Jesus – Jesus Christ, the Christian messiah

Christian