At Christmas? On Christmas? For Christmas? During Christmas? Over Christmas?

Hey everyone, the holiday season is coming up so I thought I'd revisit prepositions and their slight variations in meaning. 

during Christmas

This isn't used so often in North American English but the expression is talking about during Christmas vacation or during the Christmas holidays/season. Actually, it is rare to hear during Christmas being used on it's own it will usually be followed by another word such as season/holidays/vacation and is usually preceeded by THE.

I love the all the decorations during the Christmas season.

Where did you go during (the) Christmas vacation?

He's always in a good mood during the Christmas holidays.

A similar expression is over Christmas which is used with holidays or vacation.

What did you do over the Christmas holidays?

I stayed home & relaxed over (the) Christmas vacation?

for Christmas

For is used to indicate a PURPOSE, GOAL or REASON. It's not used to talk about time.

This is for you.

I got this for my birthday.

So for Christmas is talking about the reason you did something.

Dan: What are you doing for Christmas?

Alice: Well, I have to work so we'll have a special dinner on December 22nd. How about you?

Dan: For Christmas I'm putting up a ton of decorations & lights before going skiing in Switzerland!

On Christmas

On is used to indicate a specific DAY so if someone says "on Christmas" they're talking about December 25th only.

On Christmas, I always eat a big dinner.

I loved opening presents on Christmas morning when I was a kid.

At Christmas

At is used to indicate a specific time(noon, midnight, 1PM, etc.), in this case it is a time of year. It has a similar meaning to during the Christmas season.

People tend to tip more at Christmas.

I love it when it's snowy at Christmas.

At Christmas time, I always try & drink Christmas beer or eggnog!

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas!

Phil

Christmas Songs/Carols

Hey everyone, at the moment I am in Holland enjoying my winter holidays so today I will just be showing you some videos of famous English Christmas carols from youtube. Enjoy and:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year~!

Jingle Bells, popular with kids



Silent Night, a mellow Christmas classic plus We Wish you a Merry Christmas and Joy to the World... a bit long




Bing Crosby singing White Christmas, another classic




Dean Martin singing Let it Snow, winter song~!




Elvis Presley singing the mellow, Silent Night

Christmas Carols ^_^

Hey everyone, MERRY CHRISTMAS and Have a Happy New Year~!

So, to celebrate I decided to write about Christmas carols. These are traditional Christmas songs that people sing during the Holidays. Most, are from the 19th century and during the Christmas season people go carolling. This means they go from house to house and sing Christmas songs. Carolling used to be very popular but recently it is not so common but sometimes, it still happens ^_-

So today, I am going to present to you three very common Christmas carols that I used to sing when I was a kid.The first is:

Jingle Bells

Dashing through the snow
In a one horse open sleigh
Over the fields we go
Laughing all the way

Ha Ha Ha

Jingle bells, jingle bells,
Jingle all the way;
Oh! what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh.
Jingle bells, jingle bells,
Jingle all the way;
Oh! what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh

That is the version I used to sing as a child, if you want the full original version follow this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingle_Bells

We also had a joke version we would sing in elementary school which was:

Jingle bells, Batman smells,
Robin laid an egg;
The Batmobile lost a wheel,
And the Joker got away!

This is version talks about the superhero Batman and so it is popular among young boys who think it is funny! The second carol I am going to show you is:

We Wish you a Merry Christmas

We wish you a Merry Christmas; We wish you a Merry Christmas;
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Good tidings we bring to you and your kin;
Good tidings for Christmas and a Happy New Year.

This is only a small part of the carol but it is the one people remember. If you want to know the whole song follow this link: http://www.christmas-carols.net/carols/merry-christmas.html

One of the few that people know all the words to is:

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer

had a very shiny nose.

And if you ever saw him,

you would even say it glows.

All of the other reindeer

used to laugh and call him names.

They never let poor Rudolph

join in any reindeer games.

Then one foggy Christmas Eve

Santa came to say:

"Rudolph with your nose so bright,

won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"

Then all the reindeer loved him

as they shouted out with glee,

Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer,

you'll go down in history!

Hmm, those are the ones I remember singing as a child. I hope you enjoy these songs and have a great time during the Holidays. I am off to Taiwan soon for a short vacation, I am not sure if there will be another post this year so...

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!

SEE YOU IN 2009!

Phil


Songs with midi music for you to sing along to:

http://www.the-north-pole.com/carols/index.htm

Christmas carols:

http://www.christmas-carols.net/