Has Christmas become too commercial?

Two people were asked whether the Christian festival of Christmas

has become too commercial.
Read their responses and guess what their occupations are.

Speaker 1:
Has Christmas been subverted? Because it's such a commercial occasion
now in Britain, isn't it? A commercial celebration that starts in early
November. And the shops fill up with goods that tempt you,
and cause you to spend too much. And people spend too much on their
credit cards. Is it an average of seven hundred pounds that families
spend on Christmas? An extraordinary amount of money.

Christmas has become such a commercial celebration, hasn't it? And C.S.
Lewis used to talk about Glory to God in the High Street and the spirit
of X-mass rather than Christmas; and that does not fit well with a baby
born in a stable in Bethlehem, two thousand years ago, with no home, as a
refugee. There's something that doesn't connect between the
commercialism of our Christmas and the real bare simplicity of the story
of the Birth of Jesus.

"From Advent Sunday, four weeks before Christmas, we go into

Christmas gear - and all sorts of people come and celebrate Christmas
with us; and really for those four weeks, we'll be full one, two, three times
a day with people coming to celebrate Christmas in preparation for this
event, and I think, that says there's a tremendous longing to find the
heart of the story in the story of Jesus, and the search for God come
among us - I really think there's a strong longing for that. So it's not all
Glory to God in the high street, and there's a much deeper longing for
something substantial, and we know that you can't buy it, but we do
want it.

Speaker 2:
There's a number of departments that have what we would call extremes
of Christmas trading. Perfumery, undoubtedly, is one where
the uptake in sales in enormous; toys, naturally, is another one;
menswear, dinner jackets, of course; evening wear, and of course we
see a benefit in sales of those. You know, whatever your beliefs are, at
this time of the year you have the opportunity to live Christmas as you
want it. My job is to sell products and as successfully as we can. And
people give a lot of pleasure in giving prevents.

C.S. Lewis: an English scholar and Christian writer (1898-1963): he makes an ironic
play on words between "Glory to God in the Highest" (Heaven) and "Glory to God in the
High Street" (the main shopping area).
Match the words from the text with their definitions.

1. to subvert a) increase in sales

2. to tempt b) people buy far more at
Christmas than at other times
3. bare simplicity c) when you want something
very much
4. extremes of Christmas d) to make you want
trading something even though it may
be harmful
5. uptake in sales e) to destroy power and
influence
6. go into Christmas gear f) prepare for Christmas
7. a tremendous longing g) the essential, most
important elements
8. substantial h) certainly, without a doubt
9. undoubtedly i) something which is
important

Discuss the following questions:

• What do you think about Christmas?

• Do you think that Christmas has become too commercial?
• Do you think that people around the world think of Christmas as
mainly a religious celebration, a time for families to get together, a
winter break, or just an opportunity to go shopping?
• The religious festivals of other religions don‘t seem to be as
commercialized as Christmas; why do you think it is so?
• Some people start preparing for Christmas earlier and earlier every
year; other people think we should ‘keep Christmas in December?
Do you agree with this slogan? Why?
BBC World Service

A traditional Christmas dinner in early was the head of a pig prepared with
England. mustard

It is a British Christmas tradition that a the ingredients are stirred in a clockwise

wish made while mixing the Christmas direction.
pudding will come true only if

During the Christmas buying season, Visa cards alone are used an average of
5,340 times every minute in the United
States

For every real Christmas tree harvested, 2 to 3 seedlings are planted in its place.

In 1937, the first postage stamp to Christmas was issued in Austria.

commemorate

In Medieval England, Nicholas was just -he had not yet been referred to as Santa
another saint Claus and he had nothing to do with
Christmas.

It is estimated that 400,000 people become sick each year from eating
tainted Christmas leftovers.
Introduction- we are going to talk about Christmas and learn how to sound more like a native
speaker

Facts
I am going to give you these cards with some facts about Christmas. Your task is to mach the
beginnings and the endings of these sentences.

Reading

Quickly go through the text and guess what the occupations of these two speakers are.
Abbreviation-X-mass

Listening

• Now, you are going to listen to their responses and your task is to underline the words in
the text that are stressed/the most prominent
• Demonstrate
• Word stress

• Check with the ppt. Some of them are more stressed and some of them less, but these are
the most prominent ones. Bethlehem beth lihem
• Word stress
• If you look at the words that we underlined you can see that they are the most important
words for the meaning of the text and we can guess /figure out what the text is even if we
overhear the other words.
• Now read the text aloud and go up with the pitch on the stressed words in case of the more
syllable words that have stress on second or third syllable- syllables-
• Demonstrate-don’t be aftraid to exagerate
• Now read the text again this time read the contend word with higher pitch but no so
exagerated and read the other words as guickly as possible
• Demonstrate
• Now I am going to play the tape again and you can compare how much we sounded like
the native speaker
There are some words from the text and you should match them with their definition-andaubtidly
Discussion
Stir St3:
Slogan-slougn