Name: 6 minute English Episode 2501225 Was Christmas better in the past
Uploaded: 2026-01-02T20:09:44.000Z
Duration: 6 min 26 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Six Minute English from BBCLearningEnglish.com hello and welcome to Six Minute English from BBC Learning English.

Now, it's Christmas time in the UK at the moment and like with celebrations around the world, lots of people have many happy memories about Christmas.

Beth, do you have any happy Christmas memories?

My cousins and I used to always put on a Christmas performance for the family that was always fun.

I lived in Canada when I was a kid and it was always snowing, so it just felt perfect.

Well, at this time of year, we might look back at the Christmases from the past, from our childhood and feel like they were happier or more magical than Christmas feels today.

Yes, thinking about the past can make us feel happy and sad at the same time.

It's a strange feeling we call nostalgia.

And we're going to be talking about nostalgia today as well as Christmas memories and traditions.

And as usual, we'll be learning some useful new words and phrases.

You can practice these with the quiz and the worksheet on our website.

In the UK, the most popular Christmas meal is a roast turkey.

Oh yes, and all the roast potatoes and Brussels sprouts.

But which of these has become a popular food to eat at Christmas time in Japan?

Is it A turkey ramen, B, fried chicken or C takeaway pizza?

Well, we'll find out at the end of the program.

Now, at Christmas, people often create family traditions that they repeat every year.

Common traditions in the UK include putting out a snack for Father Christmas.

That's Santa Claus who delivers presents for children.

Well, here is host of BBC Radio 4's all in the Mind, Claudia Hammond talking to psychology professor Darryl o' Connor about his Christmas traditions.

Hello, Darryl, I wonder whether you think nostalgia for Christmas past influences your Christmas present plans.

So actually I look back on my childhood Christmas with lots and lots of nostalgia.

So when I was a child, every single Christmas morning we would have to queue up on the stairs and my father would go into the front room of the house just to double check, just in case Santa Claus was still there.

And then of course, I have repeated that exact same thing for my children.

When Claudia asked Daryl whether nostalgia influences his present day Christmases, Darrell responds Indeed it does.

This is a common conversational way to say yes or agree with someone.

We say indeed followed by do in the present tense.

On Christmas morning, Darryl asks his children to queue up on the stairs so he can check for Santa Claus, just like Darryl's father did when he was small.

And Claudia likes this tradition, imagining the children waiting on the stairs, dying for their presents.

When we remember Christmas from the past and feel nostalgia, we often remember things in a very positive way.

This is what Claudia Hammond asked Catherine Loveday, who's a professor of Cognitive Neuroscience on BBC Radio 4 program All in the Mind.

Well, they're often going to be rose tinted and made more positive, of course.

And that's what we do with our past generally.

I mean, in our work we've just shown that the function of memory is not about accuracy.

It doesn't matter if some of the details are wrong.

In fact, it's actually better for us in a way to reframe our memories and to slightly adjust them to suit who we are now.

Catherine says that our memories are often rose tinted.

If a memory is rose tinted, we only see the positive things about it and don't remember any of the bad parts.

But according to Catherine, it doesn't always matter.

She says the function of memory is not accuracy.

In fact, Catherine says that how we frame a memory doesn't matter.

Frame can be used as a verb to mean how we think of or describe something like a memory.

So our memories aren't that accurate and it isn't that important.

Unless, of course, we need to remember factual details about something important.

So our nostalgia about Christmas memories.

Memories might not be based on what things were actually like in the past, but

And I think it's time I revealed the answer to my quiz question.

Beth, I asked what has become a traditional food to eat in Japan at Christmas time?

Let's recap the vocabulary we've learned, starting with nostalgia, a feeling of happiness and also some sadness when you think about a thing that happened in the past.

The phrase indeed followed by the present simple form of do can be used informally instead of answering yes.

For example, Beth, do you enjoy eating Brussels sprouts at Christmas?

Dying for something is an informal phrasal verb we use to say that we really want something.

Rose tinted means seeing only the positive parts of something and not the bad parts.

Function means the purpose of something, and

frame can be used as a verb to mean how we think of or describe something.

Once again, our six minutes are up test what you've learned in the episode with the quiz and worksheets on our website to all our listeners who are celebrating Christmas.

Merry Christmas and we hope you all have a good end to the year.

Six minute English from BBCLearningEnglish.com.

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6 minute English Episode 2501225 Was Christmas better in the past

cognitive

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present

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