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Hello and welcome to Ecom Montly Intro to American Culture.
I'm Heather.
And I am... HO HO HO HO! Marcellus.
And if you can't tell by our funny little costumes here, it is December and it's Christmas time.
That's right, Christmas time. Christmas time!
All right, so how do you celebrate Christmas?
Well, you know, Heather, I celebrate Christmas by buying presents and exchanging presents with friends and family.
I also celebrate Christmas by drinking eggnog, which is a traditional Christmas drink in America.
That is delicious.
And having a Christmas dinner with friends and family.
And also, a thing I love to do at Christmas time is to go from house to house to house,
visiting friends and sharing presents and also sharing food.
Okay.
Yeah.
How about Christmas caroling? Do you like singing Christmas carols?
I haven't in a long time, but, you know, when I was younger, yeah.
I used to go Christmas caroling a lot.
Yeah, one thing in America, sometimes we should be careful.
Saying Merry Christmas is assuming that people are Christian or that they celebrate Christmas,
That's right.
So, we generally, if you're just out and about and you want to be friendly during Christmas time,
maybe we would say, "Happy Holidays!"
That's right. Happy Holidays.
Now, the thing about Christmas is that although originally it was a Christian holiday to celebrate the birth of Jesus,
Christmas is often celebrated by people who are not Christian,
who still enjoy giving presents to their friends, or who enjoy getting together and having dinner.
And one of the things you're gonna see when you go to America is this idea of the holiday spirit.
So, the holidays, particularly Christmas, was a time when people tried their best to be nice to each other,
not to argue, not to fight, to be kind, to be generous.
This is what they mean when they say "the holiday spirit".
Now, some people say, "You should be nice to people every day, not just Christmas."
But I believe even if you can only be nice to someone one day out of the year,
you should try and be nice to someone, even just that one day.
It's better than nothing.
Yeah.
So, yeah. I hope that you have a very merry Christmas this year and are you ready?
Yeah, let's begin.
Let's begin.
Welcome back.
This is the month of December and that means it's holiday season.
And what holiday season means is that many people are getting together to eat lots of different kinds of food.
That's right. We love eating in America.
That's right and there's something you should know about eating
and that is that depending on the person, there are different types of food culture.
And that brings us to our three key words for this section.
The first key word is: vegetarian.
That's right and the second one is: pescetarian.
And finally, we have vegan.
Okay, now although during the holiday season, a lot of people like to eat ham or turkey or roast beef,
there's an ever-growing number of people who choose not to eat meat for whatever reason.
It could be religious reasons, it could be health reasons, it could be because they just don't believe in eating animals.
Those people who do not eat meat are called:
vegetarians.
That's right, vegetarians.
And again, a lot of people are choosing to become vegetarians
and so there are more restaurants in America which serve vegetarian menus.
That's right, but even in the regular restaurants, there are a lot of vegetarian options in most restaurants,
That's right.
so if you're a vegetarian and you go to America, don't worry, you won't have a problem finding food.
That's right and not only are there vegetarians, but there are also:
pescetarians.
That's right.
So, basically pescetarians are vegetarians who eat seafood.
So, maybe they don't eat beef or pork or chicken, but they'll eat fish or shrimp or clams, things like that.
That's right.
So, just a little less restrictive and then finally, the most restrictive is:
vegan.
Yes.
My god, the word vegan itself sounds like a planet from outer space and for a meat-lover like myself, it is.
But, it is another food culture and there are many, many, many people who are choosing, again for health reasons, religious,
or simply because of their beliefs, to become vegan.
Now, vegans do not put anything in their bodies that comes from animals.
So, no cheese, is that correct?
That's right.
Yeah, nothing that... even if the animal is alive when you take it, still they won't.
That's right.
Butter, eggs, milk...
Nothing.
No leather, no leather belts or shoes.
Yeah.
Yeah, they're very, very careful not use anything that came from anything with a face, they say, right?
So, a fish or a cow. Yeah.
Yeah, again lots of people are becoming vegan these days.
Whether you're becoming a vegan, whether you're a vegetarian, a pescetarian or you love a good barbecue like I do,
it's really great to be in such a big variety of cultures and to experience different kinds of foods.
I know I stayed at a friend's house once and when I first heard that their family was vegetarian, I was shocked.
But when I had those vegetarian meals, they were quite delicious.
It's true, they're coming up with really creative ways to make dishes that really resemble the original meat dish.
For example, I went to a vegetarian Chinese restaurant and I had sweet and sour chicken, but it wasn't chicken, it was tofu.
But the texture was exactly like chicken. It was amazing.
It is amazing.
Yeah.
So, whether you're a vegetarian, pescetarian, vegan or a meat-lover, please enjoy the holidays.
Take care.
Bye-bye!
See you in a bit.
All right everyone, we hope you enjoyed today's videocast learning about culture in America.
Maybe for Christmas you'll ask for a new English textbook or study some more levels, all right.
That's all for today. We'll see you next time.
Bye-bye! Ho ho ho ho!