Happy St Patrick's Day

Today is St Patrick's Day, the patron saint of Ireland. All over the world people will be dressed in green, attending parades or festivals and sipping on Guinness. To find out more about the history of St Patrick's Day and the saint himself, as well as typical celebrations and recipes, you should check out the History.com website where there are articles, videos and photos.

Go to History.com > > >

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Happy Thanksgiving!

This is the fourth Thursday in November so it is Thanksgiving again in the States. It's a time for family and friends to get together, have a beautiful meal with a big, succulent turkey and lots of fresh vegetables and potatoes.

Practise your English by going to this site >>> and reading more about why the Americans celebrate this holiday and do a quick quiz and test your knowledge.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Day of the Dead

The Day of the Dead is a holiday which is celebrated mainly in Mexico or

by people of Mexican heritage living in other countries. A variation of this holiday is celebrated in other countries around the world such as Brazil and of course here in Spain, where some families pay a visit to the cemetery to sit with their loved ones who have passed on.

You can find out more about this festival and how it is celebrated around the world by reading the article provided on Wikipedia.

Do you celebrate this day? What do you do? Leave a comment in the comment box, we'd love to read it!

Happy Halloween

Halloween is here!

Halloween is almost upon us. For many Spanish people this is just another commercial holiday imported from America and the UK. However, it is not just about dressing up in strange costumes and going around the neighbourhood asking for sweets with a cheeky call of 'Trick or treat." Halloween originated many, many years ago. You should find out more about this pagan festival by visiting the trusty History.com website and watching the videos, reading the articles, playing the games and of course, practising your English. You might be surprised by what you find out!

GO TO THE HALLOWEEN FEATURE ON HISTORY.COM > > >

Nerd Pride Day

According to Wikipedia this day originated in Spain in 2006 under the name 'dia del orgullo friki'. The 25th of May was chosen to celebrate the premiere of the first Star Wars movie in 1977. It is a day for all nerds and geeks who do not feel ashamed of showing their unconventional interests in public. So if you consider yourself to be a nerd, enjoy your special day! If you are not sure whether or not you are a nerd, do this nerdy test and find out!

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Everyone! Have you planned anything romantic for your other half today? Or do you think that Valentine's day is a load of rubbish and just an excuse for big stores to make money from the general public? Whatever you think about the day perhaps you would like to learn more about why it is celebrated in the first place and practise your English in the meanwhile. History.com has lots of information and trivia about this special day and there is even a video for you to watch.

Go to History.Com >>>

Groundhog Day

Today in the States and Canada it is Groundhog Day. A groundhog, the animal you can see in the picture, is also known as a woodchuck, a marmot or a ground squirrel. Tradition states that if this animal should come out of its burrow (home) on this day and fail to see its own shadow due to clouds, winter is almost over. However if it does see its shadow it will return to its burrow and winter will last another 6 weeks. The most famous Groundhog Day celebrations take place in a Pennsylvania town called Punxsutawney.

Perhaps you have heard or even seen the Bill Murray film, Groundhog Day, where the main character is forced to relive the day over and over again until he learns an important lesson in life.

And perhaps in class, your teacher has tried to get you to say the following tongue-twister:

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck
If a woodchuck could chuck wood?
He would chuck, he would, as much as he could,
And chuck as much as a woodchuck would
If a woodchuck could chuck wood.

Are you a Santa or a Scrooge?

Christmas is coming

Christmas is getting nearer and nearer and we are beginning to wind down for the Christmas holidays. Something I love to do in my spare time is a good crossword, I find it relaxing and I feel really proud when I manage to finish one! Here is a link to Bogglesworld where there is a fun Christmas crossword to test your Yuletide vocabulary and if you scroll down onto the next page, you can check your answers. Try to do it first without peeking though!!!

Avoid Christmas Consumerism

Christmas can be a very expensive time of year, what with buying Christmas cards and expensive presents for all our friends and family. Many people believe that we have lost sight of the real reason for celebrating the Christmas period and that we spend too much time and money on the consumer side of the holiday and don't pay enough attention to the spiritual side.

Back in 2001 an initiative was started in a bid to combat growing consumerism and the commercialisation of Christmas. A group of Canadian Mennonites began this initiative and named it Buy Nothing Christmas. To find out more about this movement, the history, the aims and objectives and what you can do to participate, check out their website.

Father Christmas Facts

In many countries Children go to bed on Christmas Eve (the 24th of December) awaiting the arrival of Father Christmas and their gifts.

Father Christmas is known by different names in different countries and the tradition and folklore surrounding this figure differs from place to place. Other names include Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas and Kris Kringle.

Father Christmas is often depicted in red clothes with black boots and a black belt but that has not always been the case. Before 1931, Santa had always been shown in black and white, green and white or an array of other colours. It was only when Coca Cola created an image (see picture on the left) of Father Christmas in red and white as part of an advertising campaign that he became known as the man in red with a white beard!

Wikipedia have some interesting information on the origins of Father Christmas in different countries and here there are some old pictures depicting him in colours other than red.

Christmas in America

In the last post I linked to a great online advent calendar where you could find out about Christmas in a different country every day. As the countdown to Christmas continues, don't forget to click on that calendar and learn something new!

If Christmas is something that you enjoy finding out about, you should link to this Christmas Listening Quiz. In this particular recording you can hear an American talking about their traditions in the festive period. The website has lots of other listening quizzes for you to try out too, so why not practice a little in your own home or when you have a spare minute at work and choose something that interests you!

Advent Calendars

As the countdown to Christmas begins many children ( and some adults) will be opening the doors on their Advent calendars. The origins of the Advent calendar come from German Lutherans who, at least as early as the beginning of the 19th century, would count the days of Advent physically. Some people marked their doors with chalk each day and some lit a new candle every day.

Nowadays, Advent calendars come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. The most common form is made up of two sheets of cardboard with 24 little doors which, when opened, reveal little pictures depicting the Nativity or other common Christmas paraphernalia such as holly or reindeer. Some calendars contain chocolates for each day and some are made of cloth and contain little figures. In a town in Germany they even have a real-life giant advent calendar!

If you haven't managed to find an Advent calendar yet, or if perhaps you think you are too old for such a thing, why don't you check out this online version! You won't find chocolates or little gifts inside it, but on each day you will find a link to some interesting information about Christmas in other countries around the globe.

Feeling Festive?

The first of December has arrived and we begin the countdown to Christmas. The lights have all been put up and turned on in the city centre and people are beginning to get into the festive spirit.

I spent Saturday putting up my Christmas tree and adorning it with lots of Christmas ornaments. If you haven't decorated your tree yet, you could visit videojug to find out how to decorate it in various styles. Videojug is a great place to find out how to do absolutely everything that anyone could ever want to do, from making an angel for the top of your Christmas tree to how to kiss your partner passionately or even how to remove a bra with one hand. What more could you want this Christmas?!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today is the fourth Thursday in November which means that the Americans are celebrating Thanksgiving. Tables all over the US will be laden with roast turkeys, vegetables, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pies and pecan pies as families celebrate all that they have to be thankful for.

If you want to learn more about the tradition behind Thanksgiving celebrations check out this website which includes an interesting video about the history of the festival, interviews with pilgrims and thanksgiving recipes for you to try out at home!

When you have read and learnt a bit more about Thanksgiving you may want to try out some of these games and activities for a little bit of vocabulary fun!

• Thanksgiving Hangman
• Pumpkin Crossword
• Thanksgiving Wordsearch

Remembrance Day

Today is the day when we commemorate the sacrifices of members of the armed forces and civilians in times of war, specifically since the First World War when the tradition was created by King George V in 1919. The date is the 11th of the eleventh month to mark the end of WWI in 1918.

It is common for people to wear a poppy (the red flower seen in the photo) on this day. The poppy was chosen as a suitable symbol for Remembrance Day after one of the most famous poems about WWI, In Flanders Fields by John Mcrae, a Canadian military physician. It is said that the red colour of the poppy aptly represents the bloodshed that takes place in wartimes.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

— John McCrae

To see news coverage of Remembrance Day in London this year, go to this video link.

Remember, remember the fifth of November...

Today is Guy Fawkes Night, or as it is sometimes better known, Bonfire Night. Traditionally in England on this night an effigy of Guy Fawkes is burnt on top of a bonfire and children and adults alike enjoy fantastic firework displays in their villages. It is often not very clear, even among the people of England, why this day is celebrated. On this day in 1605 Guido Fawkes and some fellow conspirators plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London. They failed and were arrested and executed. There is some confusion as to whether we are celebrating the fact that the plot failed or the fact that the plot almost succeeded.

For more information about the history of this festival with interesting visuals, interactive games and listening practice, check out this link.

Happy Bonfire Night x

Halloween and Autumnal Haikus

The 31st of October is Halloween and children all over the US and the UK will be out getting dressed up as ghosts, vampires or skeletons and running around their neighbourhoods knocking on doors and shouting 'Trick or Treat'. If the neighbours have any sense they will fill the children's buckets with sweets (candy - AmE), or wake up to find that they homes have been covered in egg!

Although dressing up and going trick or treating is the traditional way to celebrate Halloween, we at the BLC Blogger have thought of a cleaner and less troublesome way to mark the occasion...

...Have you ever heard of a Haiku? A Haiku is a Japenese style of poem which usually consists of three lines which have a 5, 7, 5 syllable pattern. Haikus usually contain a reference to a season of the year or to the natural world and therefore Halloween and Autumn provide lots of scope for a haiku.

Can you write a Haiku for our blog? If you are feeling creative post an entry in the comments box! If you need some inspiration, or if you just fancy reading some autumnal haikus, check out this web page.

Happy Canada Day!

Today is Canada's national holiday, Canada Day.

To celebrate, why not read up on Canadian English, eh? You could also check out the NHL Web site. Or even treat your friends to a rousing rendition of Oh, Canada!

For a French version of the country, why not plan a trip to Montréal?