Ben's Christmas Presentation

Setting up for the presentation.

Can you guess the topic?

Ben presenting 

Ben's students

Ben's students

I was asked by my school to give a presentation about Christmas. Apparently multilingual high schools from all over Debrecen were attending. I asked what they wanted me to do. They said that I was expected to give a presentation about Christmas in America for about 10-15 minutes. I said, “I would love to!” I had a week to think of what I wanted to present. I tried to figure out whether I should go historical or more recent. I decided to approach it as if the audience wanted to know what Christmas would be like if they visited the States. So I put together a slide show for the event.

A group of 15 of my students and a few teachers including my contact, Eniku, traveled with me to the event. Dana met us there. I felt bad because she had waited for about 1/2 hr for us so she was chilled to the bone. It has been between 10 and 33 degrees for the last 2 months! We got inside and I was assigned a name tag with the British flag (for English) and the words “number 1 teacher.” I laughed and thought “that’s about right”:) I discovered that I was the first presenter, hence the “#1 teacher.” Our friend Nancy was there but she lucked out. She was assigned British Christmas but got out of it. One of my brightest students was my translator when I was called up.

I opened with my name and Fort Worth Texas of course. The first slide was about music. I talked about the Carpenters and Elvis in honor of my parents. I also mentioned Sinatra, The Muppets, Nat King Cole, and Bing Crosby. I also talked about my childhood memories of driving to see family after Christmas and listening to “KLUV Oldies 98.7” play Christmas music all day. I then spoke about airline travel being crazy around the holidays. I then moved on to road trip travel to visit family for the holidays. The next topic was movies playing for the holidays. I included A Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation, The Grinch, The Santa Clause, It’s Wonderful Life, and Charlie Brown. I flowed into television specials by including The Simpsons, South Park, and Friends. I then explained some American traditions. Some traditions were the White House and Capital Tree, houses with lights, festivals, and “The Night Before Christmas”. I also explained how in the States children believe that Santa brings gifts on Christmas Eve by coming down the chimney. I also mentioned how children left milk and cookies for him. This was funny because I had learned that Hungarian children have a different view. They think that Santa comes on Dec. 6th. On Christmas Eve baby Jesus comes and puts presents under the tree with the help of angels.

After smashing the beliefs of a few children in the crowd that I hadn’t noticed until after my statement I moved on :(. I explained Black Friday and Christmas shopping madness. I showed some traditional treats like gingerbread, hot chocolate, sugar cookies, and candy canes. I also showed a typical Christmas meal with turkey and ham as well. I then closed with a picture of a candle light Christmas Eve service. I had intended to close with a You Tube video of a house with lights set to music but the internet was down.

Everyone seemed to like it and I asked them to clap for my student translator and then sat down. I then got to witness another American having to do British Christmas while nervous and trying to present far too much material. He was nice and meant well, but people seemed a little lost. We then watched France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. We had a few snacks and then came home to prepare for our holiday trip that you have been reading about. I really enjoyed doing the presentation and hopefully the audience wasn’t lost too much in translation.