Alan's Weekend Words 2nd December

Hello everyone
I hope you like my new guitar tune introduction which I recorded yesterday. I wanted a new tune for 2008 – but I’m starting early by changing it now.
Today my weekend words is about Christmas traditions in England. It might be interesting for you to see what we different traditions we have here compared with where you live.
Firstly, the celebration of Christmas is not just a religious festival here. It has become the main winter holiday for England and most people now can take maybe up to 10 days off work to celebrate Christmas and also the New Year. In the USA for example, there are other celebrations that the whole country can take part in, such as Thanksgiving and Independence Day. In France, Bastille Day is very important. However in my country there a very few holidays where many people take a holiday at the same time. Christmas and New Year represent our biggest holiday celebration of the year where people give presents, remember family and friends with presents and cards and also take some time off work or even have a holiday in another country.
So unless you are particularly religious, for us, Christmas actually begins on the 25th December. Some people do have family parties on the evening of the 24th, but this is quite rare.
Those people who are religious would go to church on evening of the 24th. Catholics for example have "midnight mass" which is held late in the evening. For other people, the 24th or "Christmas Eve" is the time to go out to visit friends, go to pubs or clubs and enjoy the holiday late into the night.
For those with young families, it is the night when Father Christmas (or Santa Claus) visits and brings presents. When I was young, we used to hang up an old pillow case or large stocking by the fire which would have presents inside it in the morning.
Usually the day starts with presents being given to family – especially children. The most common traditional family lunch is roast turkey (or chicken) with roast potatoes and mashed potatoes, boiled or steamed brussel sprouts and carrots for vegetables, a rich meat gravy sauce and stuffing which consists of breadcrumbs and herbs baked in the oven as a soft dough. Some people prefer pork and this can be eaten with apple or cranberry sweet sauce. Of course for those people who are vegetarians, there is the choice of maybe some roast vegetables with garnish of herbs such as parsley or thyme.
The traditional dessert is "Christmas pudding" which is a steamed pudding using a mixture of dried fruits and cake mixture to bind it all together. This is eaten with a white sweet sauce to look like a snow cap. Some people don’t eat the pudding with sauce or maybe they would eat ice cream with it.
To finish off the meal, there are mince pies which are small pastries filled with dried fruit sweet sauce called "mincemeat" – which in the past was real meat, but now is fruit.
For drinks – many people like to drink whisky or brandy (and sometimes some brandy is added to the christmas pudding and set alight for a few seconds prior to serving it. This makes the flavour very strong.
The afternoon is usually the time to visit family or invite friends to come and visit. The day will be quite quiet as many people have eaten a lot by then. Even meals can be a buffet snack so that people can eat as much or as little as they prefer to.
Often the children will be tired and maybe ready for bed quite soon as they had woke up very early to see what presents "Father Christmas" had brought them.
For other people who don’t have children, or young adults – they often go out to visit people or go to a pub (public house)
So that is "Christmas Eve and Christmas Day" – I’ll tell you about the 26th of December (known as Boxing day) next time.
Take care and bye for now