TGIUK would like to wish all our readers a very merry Christmas. Every country and indeed every family celebrates Christmas in a different way but please find below a list of some of the UK traditions, some of which we will share with other countries, some will be just UK. We would love to hear examples of how you celebrate Christmas.
- Christmas starts with Advent on the 1st December. This is about getting everyone excited about Christmas. Children are given Advent calendars – they open each page one day at a time to discover a new picture or nowadays to have a piece of chocolate.
- Many schools will put on a nativity play at the end of term. This is telling the story of Jesus’s birth and most favoured children will be cast as Jesus or Mary. Most of us end up as sheep, donkeys, shepherds or wise men.
- Adults tend to have Christmas quizzes so make sure you know what year the Christmas tree was introduced etc..
- Christmas lights are a big deal, often very arty and are in most villages and towns. Some towns raise funds all year for their Christmas lights.
- Most offices will have Christmas parties and teams will go out for a meal or a drink. In the public sector staff have to pay for this, in the private sector, it depends on what kind of a year you have had.
- Adults take children to a pantomime. This is the telling of a fairy story with lots of jokes and audience participation, the leading character is known as a Dame and is a man dressed as a woman. The best pantomimes have jokes for the children and for the adults.
- Father Christmas visits on Christmas eve so that children wake up to a stocking or pillow full of presents. This is really exciting for children and is a way of telling a child that they are really special. Its a bit unfair on the parents who have paid for all those presents and then have to pretend that Father Christmas bought them all.
- Different families have their meals at different times, the traditional meal is roast turkey, roast potatoes, Brussel sprouts, bread sauce plus more followed by a Christmas pudding.
- Many families all give each other presents or do Secret Santa – this is when you buy one present and everyone is given a present from the pile.
- And if you are very traditional, you watch the Queen’s Speech at 3 pm in the afternoon.
