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Christmas – Conversation Lesson

Kristin: Jingle bells, jingle bells… hey, it’s almost Christmastime so I was just thinking of what it was like growing up celebrating Christmas. Because it brings back really good memories for me actually, just thinking about different Christmas decorations that, y’know, my mom would bring out. They always had this certain smell to them.

And, of course, Christmas songs I love. They have such… such good memories for me. But it’s interesting not, with my parents not being Christian and not growing up Christian, I do remember at least one of our Christmas decorations was Christian, like we had a nativity scene.

Joe: Yeah, we definitely had that at my house. The Catholic household, I think every Catholic household, at least in New York when I was a child growing up, every Catholic household certainly had a nativity scene in the house.

Kristin: Well, I imagine like where a lot of our Christmas decorations were Frosty and Rudolph, Santa Claus, yours were probably more baby Jesus.

Joe: Well, that one at least was, that’s for sure. But, yeah, we had a lot that were related to Santa Claus, y’know, and reindeer. And like you said, Frosty the snowman, and Christmas wreaths, we had those.

Kristin: Oh yeah, we had wreaths also.

Joe: I think we had mistletoe, but I’m not sure. I don’t remember, but that’s another popular one. But there’s really not much more beyond that nativity scene. Y’know, I mean, there’s really not much more in terms of decorations that I can think of, at least.

AJ: Yeah, my family for Christmas, it was completely secular, so not religious at all because my family wasn’t, so it was very much secular. But, of course, y’know, Christmas as a holiday actually goes back earlier than Christianity, so, as usual like the Christians sort of took that existing holiday, which was sort of a, y’know, the winter holiday around December 21st and then they co-opted it as they often do.

So it was, y’know, for some families I think in the United States it’s a religious holiday and for many, many, many, it’s not at all. It’s just purely a secular or cultural holiday. But still I had… regardless, either way I think most people have great memories of it. Especially I think when we were younger, when it was less commercial. I just… it seemed a little more magical.

Joe: Do you think that’s because we were kids though? And kids today still see it that way?

Kristin: Maybe but I was going to say, AJ, when you mentioned a lot of people have fond memories, actually some people get really depressed around Christmas. It made me think of this, too, when you were talking about the commercial aspect.

Like my mom can get really depressed because she starts thinking about all the money she has to spend on gifts. So she gets really down. But another memory that I remember was watching all those Christmas shows. Like the cartoons, but also the claymation, like the Rudolph claymation ones.

Joe: Yeah, I don’t think they really do new ones like that. Maybe they show the old ones. But I have to imagine maybe now it’s like CGI graphics if they’re going to do something like that. Don’t you think?

AJ: Yeah, probably. And I do think, I don’t know, but just observing kids in my family, younger kids in my family around Christmas, of course, they get excited. But I do think there’s something missing and even for the adults.

I think that when we were younger I noticed there was more of a… there really was more of a spirit of, I don’t know, generosity and connection. And now it feels a lot more commercial. I mean they start with doing Christmas ads in November. Sometimes even I see them around Halloween at the end of October and so I think the whole thing, especially for adults, feels very, very, very commercial and that’s why a lot of people… I know myself now it doesn’t feel very special at all.

But still I have good, lots of good memories about it. It’s… especially packing up the car every… in December and our whole family would get into this station wagon and my dad would drive us up to Indiana or over to Indiana, like 8, 9, 10 hours and these big road trips to go visit my grandparents and uncles and aunts. Those were good memories.

Kristin: Yeah, after my grandparents moved down to Florida, a lot of years my mom and I, my younger brother, sometimes my dad and older brother, we’d go down to see them at Christmastime, spend Christmas with them. Or sometimes they would fly up to be with us. But yeah, we would… we would do the same thing. We would drive down.

Joe: I kind of feel similar in that Christmas really doesn’t seem that special to me anymore. But for me, I think it’s just because I don’t have any children so usually celebrating Christmas, unless I’m with my family, there aren’t children around.

And what I have noticed though is that when there are children around the excitement level goes up significantly, especially if the kids are, say, eight years old and younger and they really, truly believe in Santa Claus. Then they’re really excited.

I mean I remember a few years ago we actually were celebrating Christmas with our families, Kristin and I were. And a night or two before Christmas we were at a friend’s house and his son was young and he believed in Santa Claus.

And he always had his room very messy and we told him that if he didn’t have his room clean, Santa Claus might not bring him presents. And I don’t know if you remember, Kristin, the panic…

Kristin: Yeah.

Joe: …that set forth in his eyes. And he just immediately started cleaning his room and he’s like coming up to us, “Can you guys look at the room…”

Kristin: Yeah, yeah.

Joe: “…Do you think it looks okay?”

Kristin: Yeah. Yeah, that was fun actually because we, y’know, going back and surprising both sets of our parents for Christmas, they had no idea we were coming. It was nice, too, to spend Christmas with our families because usually we’re abroad.

So we’re in Southeast Asia many years and there it definitely doesn’t feel like Christmas because, for example, if we’re in Thailand, that’s a Buddhist country and it’s hot and humid, so not typical Christmas weather. Although in Bangkok you can see Christmas decorations and have people wishing you a Merry Christmas, which is a little odd, but…

Joe: Yeah, especially in the shopping malls you see that. And then one Christmas we were in Cambodia and, remember, they brought us… you guys should remember this, they brought us up a little cake with like Santa Claus on it or an elf or something to say Merry Christmas.

Kristin: Oh, yeah.

AJ: Yeah, I think the things I like or miss about it were really the time with my family, getting together with my big extended family. So that was the time of year I got to see my aunts and my uncles and my cousins and my grandparents. So that doesn’t happen as much anymore, but that’s my best memory of it.

Joe: Yeah, for me it was kind of something similar. Y’know, we had a really large extended family, especially on my mother’s side, the large Italian-American family. And we would have a lot of people together for Christmas and we would often go to one or two different households.

Like we would be at my grandparents’ house and then we would go to like one of my great-aunt’s houses and she had a big family with grandchildren. So we’d see our second cousins and, y’know, just like you were saying, AJ, it was a time to see some of the relatives that you may see once or twice a year.

Kristin: Yeah, for me it was like I said, watching those Christmas specials with my brothers or my cousins. And something else I always liked to go to do, not that we did this every year, but sometimes we would go to the Nutcracker. So that was always like a special thing, or some years, to do, that’s very representative of Christmastime.

Joe: So you just mentioned the Christmas specials, the ones on TV. What were some of your favorites, guys?

Kristin: Charlie Brown Christmas.

Joe: Oh, yeah, I loved that one, too. AJ?

AJ: Let’s see, it was… there was the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer one, with the big snow monster. I can’t remember the names of all of them but they were those claymation ones like you said, so that animation where they used clay, it was interesting.

Joe: The Heat Miser?

AJ: Yeah, the Heat Miser one, I remember that one.

Joe: Oh, that one always made me afraid. I was afraid that he was going to actually steal Christmas and Santa Claus wasn’t going to come. That one always freaked me out.

Kristin: And then there’s always the Baby New Year one, too. The Baby New Year always used to remind me of AJ.