Christmas is a Christian holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. The holiday is also commonly celebrated by non-Christian and non-religious people. The Muslim holiday Ramadan, the Jewish holiday Hanukkah, and the African American holiday Kwanzaa are also celebrated in December.
Christmas Day falls on the 25th of December, around the same time as the winter solstice, when we have the longest night and the shortest day.
Captions 11-13, Holidays and Seasons with Sigrid: Sights and Scents at Christmastime
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The timing of many December holidays has roots in pagan winter solstice festivals.
Melchior took gold, Gaspar, frankincense, and Balthazar, myrrh.
Caption 13, Children's Books Read Aloud: The Story of the Three Wise Kings
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Melchior, Gaspar, and Balthazar were kings who, according to the Christian Bible, visited the infant Christ with gifts. Frankincense and myrrh are aromatic wood resins that can be used in the making of perfumes. Today, these may not seem as valuable as gold, but in the ancient world, they were considered to be treasures worthy of royalty.
You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
Caption 17, A Charlie Brown Christmas: True Meaning
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"Swaddling" is an antiquated word meaning strips of cloth, which in the old days were used to keep babies warm and restrict their movements. Today, it's almost exclusively used when referring to clothes worn by the infant Jesus. A "manger" is a box used in a stable to feed animals, but in the case of Jesus, his parents Mary and Joseph were so poor that they used a manger as a crib.
So just keep kissing me under the mistletoe...
Caption 20, Ed Sheeran: Merry Christmas ft. Elton John
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To get to some less religious Christmas traditions: Mistletoe is a plant with green leaves and berries, which is often found hanging above doorways at Christmas parties. Couples who find themselves standing under it are encouraged to kiss. Apparently, mistletoe was a fertility symbol in ancient times!
This is a traditional milk-based holiday drink. -What is eggnog? -Correct!
Caption 83, Delta's Holiday: In-Flight Safety Video
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Eggnog is indeed a milk-based drink that is traditionally offered during the Christmas holiday, but best beware: it tastes deceptively mild but may contain more alcohol than you expected!
And every mother's child is gonna spy to see if reindeer really know how to fly.
Captions 12-13, Clean Bandit: Christmas Special
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The legendary figure of Santa Claus soars through the night skies in a sleigh powered by magical flying reindeer, delivering presents to children around the world. A reindeer is a type of deer found in the far northern regions of Europe, Russia, and the Americas. Sorry to have to say this, but reindeer can't actually fly!
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer had a very shiny nose.
Captions 4-5, Minidisco: Cartoons
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Rudolph is the most famous of Santa's reindeer, and he has the extra special magical power of a bright red glowing nose, which according to Christmas lore, helps light the way for Santa's sled on dark and stormy nights. This story first originated in a book in 1939.
Further Learning
Watch the videos above and search Yabla English for "Christmas" to find some more vocabulary related to the holiday. And regardless of your beliefs or non-beliefs, we at Yabla wish you all happy holidays!
Before you travel by air for vacation or perhaps to visit a friend, it might be wise to review some of the basic words related to air travel. Firstly, the place you leave from:
I'm off to the airport! -Have a nice trip.
Caption 88, Ask Jimmy Carter - Another interview with Sharon Stone
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Then the vehicle that you use to travel with:
In an airplane, there's always a front exit and sometimes there's a rear exit.
Caption 58, The Alphabet - the Letter R
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Then the action you carry out on the airplane:
But most of us can't just fly off to faraway places. Well, no flying is necessary when you've got Yabla.
Captions 7-8, Yabla Languages - Introduction to Yabla
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The verb "to fly," can mean to travel by airplane, and though you may not need to fly to learn a foreign language, it helps sometimes getting to you destination!
As we prepare for take-off, please relax and enjoy the flight.
Caption 89, Delta's Holiday - In-Flight Safety Video
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"Take-off" is when the airplane leaves the ground and takes to the air. In English, you say you are "catching a flight" to mean you are going to travel on an airplane.
Please power off all electronic devices during takeoff and landing.
Caption 51, Air New Zealand - An Unexpected Briefing
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"Landing" is, of course, the opposite of "takeoff" (note too that "take-off" may be spelled with or without a hyphen). "Electronic devices" include cellular phones, tablets, and laptop computers.
Further Learning
Go to this page and see some other examples of travel words in English, and then go to Yabla English to find other examples of travel words used in a real-world context.
A countable noun is a common noun that has singular and plural forms and can be modified by a number.
The opposite of a common noun is called a mass noun, which does not have different singular and plural forms, nor can it be modified by a number.
As a general rule, words referring to objects and people are countable nouns, and words referring to liquids (water, juice), powders (sugar, sand), and substances (metal, wood) are mass nouns.
When you travel you have two suitcases. Suitcases are the same as luggage, but you cannot say "two luggages" as luggage is a mass noun. When you travel you have luggage, or two pieces of luggage. Mass nouns use measure words like pieces of to make plurals.
You want to build a bookshelf so you buy eight boards made of wood. "Wood" is a mass noun, so it is incorrect to say you have "eight woods," but you can say you have eight pieces of wood.
Here is a list of some more mass nouns: advice, air, art, blood, butter, data, deodorant, equipment, evidence, food, furniture, garbage, graffiti, grass, homework, housework, information, knowledge, mathematics, meat, milk, money, music, notation, paper, pollution, progress, sand, soap, software, sugar, traffic, transportation, travel, trash, water
There are some words that are both countable nouns and mass nouns. You leave some papers on the desk, by which you mean you leave some specific documents. If you leave some paper on the desk, you mean you left a package of paper or just some paper in a general sense.
Further Learning
Search for some mass nouns on Yabla English and see how they are used in context.
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