[11:35] Christmas Traditions and Family Celebrations Explained

Practice listening easily with 15 minutes a day! This book features carefully selected 2-minute passages of moderate difficulty, suitable for beginners. Through four stages of “pre-listening—catching keywords—understanding sentence by sentence—overall retelling,” learners gradually improve and understand over 90% of the content. With persistent practice, quantitative change leads to qualitative improvement, making your English listening skills soar! Below is a collection organized by the qicai website editor, starting from the simplest English listening materials suitable for junior and senior high school students (beginner level).

Christmas In December, Christmas comes. We get a holiday from school and our parents get a few days off from work. Our family gets ready for Christmas by decorating the house. We decorate inside and out. On the outside of the house, we put up lights that twinkle and glow. We have a wooden Santa Claus and a reindeer set that my father puts up on the roof.

Inside, we put up a Christmas tree. Some years, we have a real tree. Real pine trees smell nice, but you have to be careful that they don't dry out and start a fire. This year, we have an artificial tree. We hang tinsel and ornaments on the tree. We also hang strands of light on the tree and put a star at the top. Everyone thinks that the tree is beautiful when we turn on the lights. We place gifts under the tree. There is a gift for me under the tree. It is wrapped in red paper and it has a big green bow on it. Red and green are the Christmas colors.

On Christmas Eve, my brother and sister and I will hang our stockings near the fireplace. Santa Claus comes down the chimney and fills our stockings full of toys and goodies. On Christmas morning, it is exciting to see what Santa has left for you.

My mother will make a big turkey dinner for us on Christmas Day. We have lots of vegetables and good tasting foods to go with the turkey. We will have dessert, too. Some of my family like Christmas pudding, but I will just have ice cream.

Last year, some carolers came to the door. It was snowing outside. They stood in the snow and sang Christmas carols to us. My father gave them some money and my mother gave them some hot chocolate to warm them up. They had lovely voices and they sang some of my favorite carols.

We also collect food, gifts and money for some of the people in town who cannot afford to have Christmas. My family is collecting things for a poor family who live near here. We had fun deciding which toys to buy for the children in that family. It was a good feeling to share with people who do not have as much as you do. My parents have always taught us that Christmas is a time for giving, not receiving. I think they're right.