Christmas is less than two weeks away, so today I’d like to introduce some vocabulary for talking about typical Christmas decorations (from a North American perspective).

The most important decoration, of course, is a Christmas tree, which can be real (often a fir, pine, or spruce, but sometimes a cedar or cypress) or artificial. A Christmas tree is typically decorated with (strings of) lights, ornaments (often hung with hooks), and a star on top. It may also be decorated with tinsel (although this is a terrible idea for people who have cats!). It is also common to place a piece of fabric (sometimes plain and sometimes with decorative patterns) called a skirt around the bottom of the tree to make it look nicer.   

Phrasal verbs for Christmas trees: You may cut down a real tree, take it home, and put it up in your living room. Then, you may put on/up the ornaments (decorate the tree) and light it up. If you have an artificial tree, you may take it out of storage (move it from the closet/garage/etc. to the living room). When Christmas is over, you need to take off/down all the lights and decorations and take down the tree. If it’s a real tree, you need to throw it out/away (get rid of it), and if it’s an artificial tree, you need to put it back into storage (pack it up/away).  

Two other popular decorations are wreaths and garlands, which can be hung outside or inside the home during the holiday season. Wreaths are typically made from woven grapevines with other natural or artificial materials attached (such as holly, pinecones, dried fruit or flowers, and ornaments such as snowflakes). Garlands can be made at home from natural materials such as wood, cranberries, dried orange slices, or even popcorn along a string, or they can be purchased from a store in all sorts of festive colours, materials, and designs.  

Phrasal verbs for wreaths and garlands: Wreaths can be put/hung up and the same phrasal verbs can be used for garlands, but we can also string them up. After Christmas, we take them down. 

Finally, advent calendars have become increasingly popular in recent years. An advent calendar typically looks like a big box made of cardboard or wood that has 24 doors (or drawers) which contain small treats. Each day from December 1st to December 24th, you can open one door/drawer and enjoy the treat inside. When I was a kid, almost all advent calendars contained cheap, Christmas-themed chocolates, but these days there are all kinds of luxury advent calendars for kids and adults that contain toys, cosmetics, tea, and much more. You can also buy empty advent calendars to fill with your own choice of treats. 

Phrasal verbs for advent calendars: Starting on December 1st, you can open (up) one door/drawer per day and take out the contents to enjoy. If you want to display your calendar, you can stand/set it up on a shelf or table. (Note that there is no difference in meaning between open and open up, but both are common. You may notice this with other phrasal verbs as well, such as write (down), call (up), or hang (up).)   

There are, of course, many other Christmas decorations, such as candles, wooden reindeer, inflatable Santas and snowmen, nativity scenes, and more, but I’ll stop here for today and let you discover more on your own! Take care and enjoy the holiday season!