hello everyone and welcome to the English like a native podcast the podcast that's designed to help you to improve your English my name is Anna and today we are talking about the pre-Christmas period chaos now before I dive into this very interesting topic I have a parish notice Parish notice is something that needs to be said um to notify you about something in-house so something like some admin basically for example if you are part of a choir and you go to your choir rehearsal they might say sorry guys Parish notice your fees are due so anyone who hasn't paid their fees could you please come and see me now let's get on with our singing rehearsal oh so a parish notice is kind of like the admin is a a notification about admin so I have a parish notice for you if you would like to enjoy these podcasts with the transcript that you can download and if you'd also like to have access to a number of weekly conversation classes where you can join a class and talk about some of the topics and other additional very interesting topics to practice your English speaking then you might want to consider becoming a club member you can find out more about club membership because there are additional benefits to club membership and it's all very affordable just click on the link in this podcast description or video description wherever it is that you are consuming this episode so let's get on and talk about pre-Christmas chaos now every year around September things are chaotic because there are so many birthdays personally that I am dealing with in September including my own and my mums and my sons and my mother-in-laws and there's just so many birthdays so September is a crazy month and then once that ends once we get to the 1st of October I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders and I can relax finally but it doesn't seem to take long from the 1st of October before that little nagging sensation starts the nagging that I need to get ready for Christmas and it starts in October because someone somewhere starts with Christmas in October and what I mean by that is some of the shops will have the audacity to put up Christmas decorations and start selling Christmas bits and bobs in October some TV adverts start having like a Christmas theme and it's just some places stop playing Christmas music and there is always a debate going on within our society about when is the right time when is too early to start advertising Christmas basically is it too early to put your decorations up before December 1st is December 1st too early I want to know what you think actually I'd love you to get in touch with me and tell me when you put up your Christmas decorations and when you think it's okay to let Christmas into your life obviously only if you celebrate Christmas but for me Christmas starts on the 1st of December and that's because that's when we start our Advent calendar countdown so for me the first of December is when we can really start thinking about it these days I have to be a little bit more organized so I do start making some plans in November and of course we have the Black Friday sales that happen at the end of November and those people who are much more organized those people who know exactly what they want to buy for every person they're going to buy for those people can really they can really make the most of the Black Friday sales they go in there and they buy exactly what they need and they they save themselves a fortune by grabbing all these Bargains in the Black Friday sales personally oh I hate shopping I really hate shopping um I don't like spending time looking for something I like to just be presented with the solution to my problem so buying jeans is always something I struggle with and when I shop for jeans I just want to walk into a shop say I need a pair of jeans I don't like skinny jeans I like to have a bit of room in my jeans I don't like them to be low cut so I like high-waisted you know normal jeans for a lady size 10 12 I'll try them honestly which fits best and then I want to try them on yes they fit here's the money let me take them home that's how I want it to be but what tends to happen is I can never find the right thing I try on lots of things I'm talking specifically about clothes shopping of course but I try on lots of clothes and Nothing fits or it is something I like but they don't have my size or something is not right so I go to multiple shops and have this experience over and over and over again and it's just exhausting and that generally is my feeling about shopping it's just an exhausting experience and when you go into a sale period when everyone's in the shops going crazy and there's all these cues in some cases the Black Friday sales people go mental they start fighting they're literally fisticuffs in the shops the police and the security guards have to come in and separate people and arrest people it's just horrendous this is not my idea of fun at all so those people who can cope with sales and are organized do really well around the Black Friday sale that happens at the end of November but not me I'm normally a last minute kind of person I've always got too much to do terribly disorganized because I'm overwhelmed and um yeah I leave everything quite late now while we're on the subject of Black Friday sales Parish notice if Black Friday sales is something that you get involved with then we are also offering sale on the English like a native website which is English like a native dot Co dot UK If you want to get yourself a bargain then the best prices are available on our website around the Black Friday week so if you're listening to this around Black Friday and you want a course then go and check out our website anyway shopping sales lots of people that's my idea of hell your idea of hell might be something completely different to you being in a big shopping center during the sales might be your idea of Heaven but it is my idea of hell now I said for me the start of Christmas is the first of December and this is when we start our Advent calendar now when I said you have to be prepared before December kicks in it's because you need to go and buy a calendar that's one of the main things you need to do in November because if you don't buy your advent calendar then by the time you get to the first of December most of the good ones are gone you can't get them there'll be some cheap Advent calendars for sale somewhere but the good ones are gone growing up I always had chocolate Advent calendars now the typical Advent calendar here in the UK is a cardboard box a very slim box it's like an A4 size and it's got lots of little windows they're not open but they're little little closed windows that you can open their little the the cardboard is perforated ready for you to slip your finger in them and rip it open and inside this little cardboard box is a plastic tray that contains chocolate and so every window that you open you'll find a little chocolate behind it and as a child I loved this every day open my next window and you're counting down to Christmas but as a child all you really care about is getting the chocolate I was a bit of a chocoholic I still am a bit of a chocoholic these days there are lots of options available you can get Advent calendars that have all sorts of things in I mean if you are made of money if you're rolling in it super rich then you could probably even buy an advent calendar that's full of jewelry or you know really expensive gadgets you can get Beauty Advent calendars that have lots of makeup behind each window they're super expensive not something I've ever partaken in but what I do is well while I've had my children instead of buying them chocolate calendars I've bought I bought a wooden train that has lots of different drawers in a drawer for all 25 days and you can put your own treats in it so it's it's good for the environment because there's no plastic or rubbish to throw away you reuse it every year and you fill it with your own things so I've just been putting like little like dried fruits and things like that in there my son is allergic to Dairy so we were like avoiding chocolate and I like to keep him healthy and enjoying healthy snacks so I put healthy snacks in there and as they get older I'll probably do things like Lego so have a Lego uh thing that they have to build like a Lego train or a Lego figure but break it down and just give them a few parts every day that they have to build until finally on Christmas day they complete their Lego figure that's the idea but this year I I'm not going to do the train this year I discovered these calendars that have books behind them I managed to get a Peppa Pig calendar for my youngest son Caspian and a Marvel book calendar for my eldest son Jacob who's four and he's really into superheroes he loves Captain America and the Hulk and Spider-Man so they will both get a they're very thin little books little paperback books but I think this is going to be a really good build up for them every day getting a book because they love to read and that's quite exciting so I'm excited that I managed to find these calendars for them and that they can get excited counting down to Christmas Day and also it's environmentally friendly still because there's no plastic in these things then it's just all cardboard and we'll keep the books for a very long time and then pass them on so the first of December is for me the start of Christmas and I like to make sure that I'm already you know ready so I like to have my tree up which means I have to put my tree up in November the first weekend or the last weekend of November before we hit December so I sometimes it depends on the year but sometimes this means my decorations go up you know five days before we start December and this year I'm itching I'm itching to put up my Christmas decorations I've been itching to do it actually for a few weeks and um it's quite unusual I'm just excited I'm excited about this year how magical it will be with my four-year-old and my two-year-old so to be itching to do something is to be yearning to do it to be desperate to do something so I'm desperate to put up my Christmas decorations which means I have to make some time to go into the attic and get them down so we store everything in our attic an attic is a room in the roof of a property in the roof of a house and there's often just a little hatch to access the attic it depends on the house you live in and whether you've put in a better access but normally it's just a hatch which is a whole cut into the ceiling of the floor below and there's a little a cover a wooden cover that you have to push up so for us we have a a ladder just a standard ladder that extends we have to take that up and open it up and then climb up the ladder to open the hatch and then make the ladder even bigger to put it in and climb up into the attic and it's it's a it's quite a task actually getting all the decorations down we have an artificial tree now people really do they either love a real tree or they just love an artificial tree I love an artificial tree they last for decades and you know you're not spending money every year you don't have to deal with getting rid of them afterwards but there are benefits to having a real tree as well because the real trees smell nice they look lovely um but I'm a big fan of artificial trees we've got a really nice one in the sales a few years ago but it's huge I think it's like six and a half foot high maybe seven maybe higher I don't know it's it's huge we have to bend the top because it's all the way up to the ceiling in our Conservatory which is a is a tall room and um putting it in the Attic is a big job because it's a huge tree you can't do it by yourself otherwise you risk injury so we get all our decorations down and we make some time to do the decorating as a family we put on some Christmas music we have a little bit of like bucks Fizz which is like a sparkling Prosecco or something like that a sparkling wine with orange juice that's a bucks Fizz I think traditionally bucks Fizz was champagne and orange juice but we can't afford champagne so no champagne in our house but we might have a little Prosecco or a sparkling wine or something a fun drink to celebrate with so we we get into the mood and we all decorate together as a family and I like putting out the pictures of my children with Santa so every year the children have a picture with Santa and I frame the picture and I bring all the pictures out each year we've got an amazing photograph of Jacob his first picture with Santa and it was a last minute last minute booking to see Santa at the local Garden Center and the Santa was a little bit Haggard should we say it was quite old a bit Haggard and I think he was quite Fed Up in the picture he looks miserable and my son he was only he must have been about four months old my son looked terrified this man is holding Santa sorry is holding Jacob and Jacob looks terrified it's it's such a funny photo so I do enjoy getting those out every year and this is another thing where I have to be extra organized because booking a slot to see Santa these days is a mission you have to go on a mission to find availability and get yourself booked in before all the places go these things sell out so quickly the tickets tend to go on sale late October early November and for the best places they they are just gone within seconds this year I did manage to get a slot but it was hard I spent a long time going through lots of options to find that there wasn't availability or it just sold out before I had chance to click go and So eventually I did get in there but if I had left it until December then I'd have no chance I'd be back at the Garden Center with the tired old Santa anyway this year I'm very happy because we are booked in to see Santa on the 23rd I think so not Christmas Eve but close to Christmas which I always think is nice and of course Santa has to check whether or not you've been naughty or nice whether you're on the naughty list or the nice list and then he'll decide whether or not he will give you a gift I think it's a bit harsh really my children are very nice they're definitely on the nice list even if they are a bit naughty sometimes they're good boys all right so one thing that I find quite stressful about Christmas and something that has to be considered quite early is where you're going to spend Christmas day what you're going to eat and who you're going to spend the day with the thing is Christmas day is just one day but there's always there's always this big to do about who's spending Christmas with who whose turn is it to travel who's gonna who's gonna have the in-laws this year and someone always ends up feeling a bit hard done by like oh I didn't want that person this year or I didn't want to have to go to that place this year but hopefully that's not you hopefully you have you know a wonderful relationship with everyone in your family and your extended family and you have the room in your home to accommodate everyone and you always have a wonderful time hopefully that's you but it's always a bit of a debate and you know you have to make compromises I think this year we're just going to spend it at home I don't know who's coming to see us this year or if we're traveling out or when we're traveling out to see other people but as it's November we need to make those decisions now every household also has their own Christmas traditions don't they did you have something quite unique to your household when you were growing up I've tried to create some New Traditions with my young family and one of the things that I've introduced which I didn't have as a child is the Christmas Eve box so the Christmas Eve box is a gift that the children can open on Christmas Eve very similar to the tradition of opening one present of your choice on Christmas Eve and this Christmas Eve box in our house every year I would put a book in there for them to read on Christmas Eve so like a Christmas Eve book it may be a set of nice fresh pajamas or a nice comfy pair of fluffy warm socks something for them to enjoy in the evening of Christmas Eve so that's that's one little thing that we've introduced and there's lots of traditions that we that we partake in but I won't go into that now because that's a whole other episode that I could I could do later for you to enjoy closer to Christmas day maybe even on Christmas Day oh one tradition that I will mention that we've started doing is every Christmas we go to a garden center that has lots and lots of Christmas decorations and we allow the children to choose an ornament for the tree Christmas ornaments especially unique ones are quite expensive and if you were to completely you know buy all the ornaments you wanted for your tree it would cost a fortune so every year we just buy one and we let the children choose and our tree is getting Fuller and Fuller Fuller Fuller uh we'll be removing Baubles and just have ornaments all over the tree in a few years time now Christmas cards I believe Christmas cards is very much a UK thing we send cards to people we care about even people we don't we give cards to everyone at work like anyone you see you give them a Christmas card but if you don't see all the members of your family or your close friends around the Christmas period Then you have to post those cards in advance so you have to be organized again you have to get everyone's address you have to write the cards in advance go to the Post Office put your stamp on post them and this year I definitely have to do it because our stamps are changing they're changing our stamps and making them more digital I think they're putting a barcode on them which is very unusual which means our traditional stamps have to be used up before the end of the year and I've got books of stamps in my purse so I must send Christmas cards this year and what we tend to do is go for a little Christmas family photo shoot and we have some nice photos taken of the children in you know nice Christmas settings and then we make one of those photos a Christmas card to send to people I always think that's quite nice so coming back to the chaos of Christmas I think that's what it is it's all the admin that's what makes pre-Christmas so chaotic as a child Christmas is just magic you just enjoy it but as an adult Christmas is chaos it's all like so much more admin you have to decide who you're going to buy presents for and how much you can afford to spend and then when you know that you're gonna have to decide well what are you actually gonna buy and I'm very much a person who believes in giving gifts that are useful not just give a gift for the sake of giving a gift I like to make sure it's a good gift it's a useful gift that it won't just clutter someone's home in life I want to give them something that's going to be of value to them and that's hard to that's hard to do as you get older and everyone gets older around you and they seem to have everything they need how can you then provide value in an easy way and in an inexpensive way it's very difficult so you have all this admin to deal with it can really weigh you down especially if you've got a big family oh that's so tricky and if you are married or with a long-term partner you don't just have your own family to think about you have their family to think about as well which is a nightmare it's like well I don't know your family that well all right guys well I don't know about you but I'm feeling tense just from talking about all the things that I need to do I need to make my Christmas card list I need to book my Christmas photo shoot I need to make the cards and send the cards I need to decide who I'm buying Christmas presents for I need to then decide what I'm buying try and make the most of the Black Friday sales I need to go into the attic I need to get everything down from the attic we need to decorate the house I need to create Magic for my children and I need to have a good time and work and exercise and do all that stuff at the same time I hope you all have enjoyed today's episode please do feel free to share your thoughts and feelings about the pre-Christmas chaos and when you think it's okay to start selling Christmas stuff in the shops and playing Christmas music when is it okay for Christmas to truly start for you tell me let me know you can find me on Instagram on YouTube on Facebook just look for English like a native and that's where you'll find me till next time guys take care and goodbye