Christmas in Great Britain

Christmas Day
The 25th of December is Christmas Day. It's a happy holiday for many people in different countries.

A Christmas Card
Some weeks before Christmas English people are busy. They send greeting cards to all their relatives and friends. You can buy Christmas cards or you can make them. Many children make their cards at school.

A Christmas tree
People buy a Christmas tree and decorate it with toys, coloured balls and little coloured lights

Christmas stockings
There is an old legend. Many years ago there lived a poor man. His wife died and he lived alone with his three daughters. The girls couldn’t get married as they didn’t have any dowry.
But once before Christmas they washed up their stockings and put them next to the fireplace. Santa Claus decided to help them and put golden bars into their stockings, so that they could get married.
Since then when children go to bed, they put their stockings near their beds.

Father Christmas
At night Father Christmas comes. He has got a big bag of presents for children. He puts the presents into the children's stockings.

Christmas presents
On Christmas Eve people put their presents under the tree.

Balls on a Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square
Every year there is a very big Christmas tree in the centre of London, in Trafalgar Square. This is a present from the people of Norway to the people of Great Britain. They send it to Londoners every year and Londoners decorate the Christmas tree.

Trafalgar Square at night
In the evening before Christmas people like to come to Trafalgar Square to look at the tree. On Christmas Eve the streets in London are decorated, too.

Christmas candles
On Christmas people wish their nearest and dearest a merry Christmas. The day after Christmas is Boxing Day. People usually visit their relatives and friends. They do not work on that day.

Christmas food
For Christmas lunch people eat turkey, potatoes and green vegetables. Then they have the Christmas pudding. At five o'clock it's time for tea and Christmas cake.