12 - Christmas Memories

Hello, and welcome to the Gold Forest English Podcast. My name is Jordan, and today I want to talk about some of my Christmas memories.

Today, the day that I'm recording this, is Thursday, December 19th, so we're less than a week away from Christmas. I'm starting to feel more and more Christmas-y and I'm very excited and looking forward to Christmas Day, even though I don't have any special plans. But as I've been thinking more about Christmas, I've been remembering some of my Christmas memories from my childhood.

I come from England, and my hometown is a small town in the south of England, and at the Christmas season, I remember that there would be a Christmas market - Christmas shopping night in my hometown. And on this Christmas night, all of the shops on the main shopping street, they would stay open late into the night, and each shop would decorate their windows and decorate the inside of the shops with lights, and many of them would have - like - hot mulled wine for the adults, maybe hot juice for the children, have mince pies and different Christmas snacks available for the people that come in and talk with the shopkeepers and maybe buy some things and do some shopping. But very open and welcoming, all of these shops having people going in and out and chatting and enjoying the Christmas atmosphere.

And on the street outside, there would be stalls selling hot chestnuts. These very nice warm nuts that are cooked over a fire. And then you can have a bag - I remember they would sell a paper bag of these hot nuts. And so even though the weather would be cold, your hands would be warm carrying this bag of hot nuts. And you could eat as you walk up and down the street and they would have more hot mulled wine and things like that - Christmas cakes. So I really have a very good memory of this Christmas shopping season in my small hometown. It was small enough that you would know many of the people that you sa- many of the people that you saw on that night.

Another Christmas memory I have is connected with church. So, I am a Christian, and when I was growing up, I was raised a Christian. My mother is also a Christian, and so I would often go to church with her. And at Christmas time, we did some more of the traditional Christian Christmas activities. And one of the things that I remember happily remember is creating something called a Christingle.

So at Christmas time with the Christmas service, some churches in the Christianity religion will have Christingles. This is normally a children's activity and what it is is that each child gets an orange. An orange fruit. And the orange is representing the world. On top of the orange, you put a candle. So the candle sits in the top of the orange. The orange (CANDLE) represents Jesus. In the Christian religion, Jesus is often referred to as the light of the world. So the kids have this orange to be the world, and there's a candle, which is Jesus. Then there is a red ribbon which goes around the orange. The red ribbon is the blood of Jesus. And then the children can decorate the orange with little toothpicks, little wooden sticks. And on the wooden sticks is placed candy or dried fruit.

Traditionally, you'd have four of these wooden sticks representing the four seasons, spring, summer, autumn, and winter. And then the candy and fruit that is placed on the stick is meant to represent the gifts of the seasons, the harvest, and the fruits of the world. But I remember as a child, I remember having a lot more than four sticks because I was excited to eat all the candy. So...I remember my orange having maybe 10 different sticks full of candies all pushed together so that after I finished the Christmas service I can take their orange home and eat the candy myself. So my Christingle had a lot more than just four sticks.

This year I am living in Japan as an adult and so I don't think I will be making a Christingle, but I do plan on doing some Christmas things this season. This coming weekend I will be having a traditional Christmas dinner, a traditional English Christmas dinner at an English restaurant in Tokyo, which I'm very much looking forward to. And although it's not as good as having Christmas dinner with my family, it is still very enjoyable. I hope it will be very enjoyable. I'm sure it will be very enjoyable. Yes!

Alright, well, that's enough for today's episode. So thank you very much for listening, and I'll see you in the next one.

Goodbye.