Christmas around the world

Hi to everyone!!

Christmas is celebrated around the world with different traditions. However, most of us have a Christmas tree at home and celebrate Christmas Eve with our family. Something that is very typical these days are Chrismas Markets. Many towns in Europe organised Christmas Markets in squares and people can shop some presents and gifts, or just buy some Christmas decorations.

CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS IN GREAT BRITAIN

Some days before Christmas the English people send Christmas cards to friends and relatives, 

They also  decorate their houses with:

- Holly which is the symbol of Jesus Christ’s Crown with the blood  (the red berry)

-Mistletoe which is the symbol of peace. it’s custom to kiss under it.

- A Christmas tree.  In 1840, Prince Albert introduced this German tradition and Queen Victoria decorated it. Then this fashion was copied by other members of the aristocracy and it passed to the USA.Every year the people of  Norway send a big Christmas tree as a gift to the English since 1947. 

 -The crib(Presepe) is popular in churches or schools 

It is tradition to prepare the  “Christmas Pudding” one month before Christmas and all the family takes part in its preparation .

Christmas Eve (24 December) 

Kids hang up the “Christmas stocking” to the fireplace or on their beds.They wait for Father Christmas bringing them gifts. 

People like singing “Carols”(special religious songs)And collect money for charity associations. People go shopping and buy Christmas presents.

Christmas day (25 December) 

 The English have a big Christmas dinner: It consists of roast turkey with potatoes, vegetables, brussel sprouts and “plum pudding” (the Christmas cake) or mince pies. 

They also pull Christmas crackers which contain a party hat, a joke or a motto and a gift. 

On 25 December in the afternoon people sit down and watch the Queen's speech on tv. 

Boxing Day (26 December) 

 It is called boxing day because in this day many people receive boxes with a gift, for example the postman, the milkman, the newspaper man and also in shops or churches there are boxes for poor people.  

On Boxing day children go to to the theatre and watch Pantomimes, plays for children . They start eating mince pies until the twelfth night (6 January). 

Twelfth night (6 January) 

All decorations are removed because it is unlucky to remove them before or later. 

AMERICAN TRADITIONS FOR CHRISTMAS

The modern, more commercial­ized Christmas began to emerge in the 19th century, with the 
new custom of purchasing gifts for young children. Seasonal “Christmas shopping” began to 
assume economic importance.

Other Christmas traditions simi­larly began during the 19th cen­tury. Santa Claus — derived from the Dutch Sinter Klaas and the German Saint Nicholas — assumed the persona of a jolly dispenser of gifts and pilot of a reindeer­drawn sleigh through such works as the 1823 poem “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” by Clement Clarke Moore and an 1863 portrait by illustra­tor Thomas Nast in the magazine Harper’s Weekly. It is known now as The Night Before Christmas.

Christmas trees are believed to date back to Martin Luther, the 16th century German cleric. 
According to legend, Luther brought home to his children a fir tree one Christmas Eve to remind them of the wonders of God’s cre­ation. The custom spread to Britain and the United States in the 19th century. Today, many Americans either purchase a cut, fresh ever­
green tree or a reusable aluminum and plastic model. The Christmas tree is decorated with lights and ornaments. In many families, Christmas gifts appear under the ree on the morning of December 25, deposited there by family mem­bers, or, as smaller children might believe, by Santa Claus.

Contemporary Observances with Christmas shopping vitally important to retailers, Christmas has expanded into a “season” of its own. The day after Thanksgiving 
is known as “Black Friday.” An important shopping day, it pushes some businesses into profitability for the year, or in accounting ter­minology, “in the black,” and can account for a substantial propor­tion of annual profits.

This extended Christmas sea­son, from Thanksgiving until Christmas, is about far more than 
shopping. For many Americans, it is a time of goodwill and an occa­sion for charitable work. Non­ Christian holidays celebrated at roughly the same time of year — most prominently the African­ American Kwanzaa and the Jewish Hanukkah — blend into a broader 
“holiday season.”

Christmas­themed programs such as the 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life and the animated Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer often appear on television. An increasing num­ber of radio stations now adjust their formats to feature Christmas music, sometimes exclusively, dur­ing the four to six weeks before December 25.

The holiday’s original religious meaning remains for many its most important element. Churches hold well­attended Christmas Eve can­dlelight or midnight services. Some include a Mass of the Nativity or a dramatization of the birth of Jesus.

As with so many aspects of U.S. culturlife, Christmas in the United States reflects the values of 
a free and diverse people.

Source : UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION PROGRAMS
Published December, 2011.

British Christmas Vocabulary

American Christmas Vocabulary

If you want to know more about Christmas traditions, have a look at this link.

http://www.pearsonelt.es/adventcalendar/

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2014!!

Bye for now,

Sara.

Ascot races

This is Ascot!!

Ascot races have been celebrated for more than 300 years. The Queen Elizabeth II and many people from the British aristocracy, such as her granddaughers, go to see the races and to be seen. Why? Because it is costumary tradition for ladies to wear stunning hats with different kind of colours and materials such as feathers, silk and staw.

Official website for the races

As I previously described, this tradition has been reported for a long time and we can see an example
in a very famous film like My Fair Lady.

Scene from My Fair Lady

Here you have some examples of the Royal Family:

Hats-Royal-Ascot-

GREAT BRITAIN ROYAL WEDDING AND BIRTH

As you may know, from ancient times, monarchy is a way of goverment in the United Kingdom. This country has a constitutional monarchy as Spain.

Constitutional monarchy

The monarch and the parliament

http://www.parliament.uk/education/


There have been different kind of dinasties, I mean, different kind of royal families ruling the country.

List of British Monarchs

Nowadays, the house name is Windsor. Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth II is the Head of the State of the UK.

Queen Elizabeth II

 And in few days, we are going to be witness of a royal marriage. Her grandson, Prince William is going to marry Miss Kate Middleton. In the following link you can read some facts about his life. He suffered a lot with his mother's death in 1997.

Prince William


              

A baby has been born!! This summer the Dukes of Cambridge had a son. He is called George.

Prince George of Cambridge (George Alexander Louis;^{[fn 1]} born 22 July 2013) is the son of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and the only grandchild of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Diana, Princess of Wales. After his grandfather and a father, he is third in line to succeed his great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II.

WIKI

GETTING AROUND EXETER

This blog tries to show you just some of the most striking places in New York.
Of course, the best way to know a city is to get there and walk along the streets and get lost among the people. You really can tell others that you know a city when you mingle with the crowd and live as one of them.

And that's what you, my students, are going to do in Exeter. Therefore, the purpose of this wiki is to give you some hints of what you are going to find when you arrive to Exeter.

http://gettingaroundexeter.wikispaces.com/

VIDEOS

Let's see some of my favourite clips about New York.

The first one is a tour around the city which I have uploaded and it is on youtube.

   

The second one is a Alicia Keys ' song and clip.

          


Finally, I love Frank Sinatra's song New York, New York. I listened to it while I was crossing Brooklyn Bridge at night watching New York's skyline and lights.

IMAGES

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia :



New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York City has a significant impact on global commerce, finance, media, culture, art, fashion, research, education, and entertainment.


As host of the United Nations Headquarters, it is also an important center for international affairs.


The city is often referred to as New York City or the City of New York, to distinguish it from the state of New York, of which it is a part.


Located on a large natural harbor on the Atlantic coast of the Northeastern United States, New York City consists of five boroughs: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island.

 With a population of 8.4 milliondistributed over a land area of just 305 square miles (790 km²),New York is the most densely populated major city in the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world.The New York metropolitan area's population is the United States' largest, estimated at 19.1 million people distributed over 6,720 square miles (17,400 km²). The New York metropolitan area is also part of the most populous combined statistical area in the United States, containing 22.2 million people as of 2009 Census estimates.


New York traces its roots to the 1624 founding of New Amsterdam as a trading post by Dutch colonists. The city and its surrounds came under English control in 1664, and was renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York. New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the country's largest city since 1790.


Many districts and landmarks in New York City have become well known to outsiders. The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to America by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Times Square, iconified as "The Crossroads of the World", is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway theater district, one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, and a major center of the world's entertainment industry. New York City's financial district, anchored by Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, functions as the financial capital of the world and is home to the New York Stock Exchange, the world's largest stock exchange by total market capitalization of its listed companies. Manhattan's real estate market has become reputed as one of the most prized and expensive in the world. Manhattan's Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere.

Numerous colleges and universities are located in New York, including Columbia University, New York University and Rockefeller University, which are ranked among the top 100 in the world.

INTRODUCTION

The aim of this blog is to report about some cultural facts from different English speaking countries. The country which I have chosen first is USA. It is such a large country that we can find different kinds of landmarks in it

One of the most important landmarks in itself is the city of New York. It was a Dutch settlement in origin and its districts are well known for most people since its streets have been used as locations for many films and sitcoms

Some of the most famous films are Breakfast at Tiffany's and Manhattan,  and a famous sitcom is Friends, where all the characters meet at Central Perk.