Written by
Stephen Carragher
With the influx of Irish emigrants coming home, the airports experience their busiest period in the lead up to X-MAS. Ireland wasn’t always the prosperous country it is today and millions were forced to emigrate (there are 3.75 million Irish in Ireland and 9 million abroad), perhaps that’s why you see an Irish pub around every second corner. But, lots of them arrive back for the Christmas festivities to celebrate with friends and family.
The 24th Dec. or Christmas Eve is a pretty uneventful day in Ireland, it’s a normal working day and the shops are open till 5 or 6 o’clock. Many do a bit of last minute shopping or pack presents, the Turkey is prepared for Christmas Day and the house is tidied up. In the evening we might go around to the local pub for a few drinks and meet old friends and neighbours. The gifts are placed under the tree for Christmas morning and some people go to midnight mass.
Kids get up at 5 or 6 o’clock in the morning on Christmas Day to open their presents. Otherwise we get up around 10 o’clock, eat breakfast, go to mass and go for a walk on the beach. The Turkey takes 5-6 hours to cook so it has to be put in the oven early. We open our presents in the afternoon and prepare the meal, chat, have a few drinks and watch a bit of T.V. Dinner is usually around 4pm, a typical X-MAS dinner would be turkey & stuffing, ham, roast potatoes, Brussels-sprouts, carrots, gravy, apple sauce and red wine. For dessert if you can manage it, you can have pudding with cream, Christmas cake or trifle, then we pull a cracker which usually has a corny joke and a trinket inside. After dinner we hit the sofa and chill out, in the evening perhaps friends and relations come by or we go visit somebody. Everything is closed including the pubs!
The 26th Dec. is called Saint Stephens Day in Ireland and the festivities continue. We typically visit relations, go somewhere or watch some of the good reports and documentaries on T.V. Everything is still closed, most of the pubs are closed or only open up for 5-6 hours in the afternoon.
That’s a rough idea of what a typical Christmas is like in Ireland. Hope you learned something new. All the best for 2007.
Vocabulary:
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influx
experience
lead up to XMAS
prosperous
were forced
pretty uneventful
tidied up
mass
chat
gravy
if you can manage
trifle
pull a cracker
corny joke
trinket
hit the sofa
relations
still closed
rough idea
like
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Einströmen/ Zustrom
Erfahrung
Tage vor Weihnachten
erfolgreich, florierend
wurden gezwungen
ziemlich ruhig / ereignislos
aufgeräumt
die Messe
plaudern
Sauce
wenn man es schafft
eine Art Biskuitdessert
ein Knallbonbon hochgehen lassen
kitschiger Witz
eine Kleinigkeit / Verzierung
sich aufs Sofa hauen
die Verwandtschaft
immer noch geschlossen
in etwa / im Groben
wie es ist
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