VOCABULARY

To win (money, a competition, a prize, an award, the lottery, a game, a match)To earn (money, a salary, respect, a living)To deserve (a break from work, a nice holiday, a good rest)To save (time)To beat (another team, a person)

Christmas food in England isn’t particularly complicated. No surprises there! Christmas dinner is usually a huge roasted turkey served with roast potatoes, vegetables and followed by mince pies: a pie, a sort of pastel dulce. The most exciting part of the meal, for me anyway, is the Christmas pudding, which is traditionally covered in brandy and set on fire. Those who can still move after all that heavy, rich food can have a piece of Christmas cake, a sugar coated fruit cake with lots of marzipan.Another original English Christmas tradition is the Christmas cracker. Christmas crackers are small paper tubes (a bit like the inside of a roll of toilet paper) covered with coloured paper. There’s a small gift inside, a paper hat and a small piece of paper with a joke written on it. They were invented by a baker from London in the mid 19th century, and they’ve become quite popular all over the world. It’s traditionally opened by two people who each pull on one end of the cracker until it, well, cracks.