圣诞节的由来
Christmas Day,the 25th of December,is the biggest festival celebrated in the Christian countries of the world.Christmas regard this day as the birthday of Jesus Christ,but many of the customs and celebrations are not of a religious1 nature.
In the large shops preparations for Christmas are begun five or six weeks before the actual day.Shop owners like Christmas because it is a time when people exchange2 presents.This means more goods are bought than at any other time of the year.In larger towns decorations3 are put up in the main street two or three weeks before Christmas---usually these decorations are lit up at night.
Preparations are also made at home.Special puddings and cakes are eaten on Christmas Day and these have to be made three or four weeks in advance4.Two or three days before Christmas,people decorate their houses with paper decorations and leaves and branches.People also like to have a Christmas tree in the living room.This is a very small fir tree decorated with silver paper and colored lights.
Although everyone enjoys Christmas Day,it is particularly5 enjoyed by children,who get very excited because of the presents they know they are going to receive.Small children believe that their presents are brought by Father Christmas.Father Christmas is a kind old man who,the children are told,lives at the North Pole.He travels through the sky on a sledge6 which is pulled by reindeer7 and loaded with presents.Stopping on the roofs of houses,he enters by climbing down the chimney.When small children go to bed on Christmas Eve,they hang a stocking at the end of their beds.The parents warn them not to try to look at Father Christmas or he will not leave them anything.When they wake up,they find their stockings filled with presents.Children are very excited on Christmas morning and always wake up early.
Father Christmas- -圣诞老人
It is said that in the year of 300 AD,there was a kind old man and his name was Saint Nicholas.He was always ready to help the poor and often gave presents to them.
Today,Father Christmas is an imaginary figure,but nearly all young children believe in him.They think he is a happy old man with a long white beard and a long red robe.
On the night of the twenty-fourth of December every year,Father Christmas from some cold northern land comes down the chimney of the fireplace to put presents by the beds of children or to fill their stockings.So when children go to bed that night,they hang up their stockings,and on Christmas morning they wake to find them full of presents.Of course,it's really their parents who fill the stockings.
Another name for Father Christmas is Santa Claus.