Was Christmas better in the past?

6 Minute English

BBC

Language Learning, Education

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 25 December 2025

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It's Christmas time in the UK. And like with celebrations around the world, people have lots of traditions that they do every year, and memories about Christmas from their childhood. But were the Christmases of the past as magical as we remember? Neil and Beth discuss a strange emotion we can feel at Christmas called nostalgia.

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Transcript

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0:32.1	6 Minute English from BBC LearningEnglish.com.
0:46.3	Hello and welcome to Six Minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm Beth. And I'm Neil. Now, it's Christmas time in the UK at the moment and like with celebrations around the world, lots of people
0:52.5	have many happy memories about Christmas.
0:55.1	Beth, do you have any happy Christmas memories?
0:57.9	I have a lot.
0:59.9	My cousins and I used to always put on a Christmas performance for the family.
1:05.2	That was always fun.
1:06.5	What about you?
1:07.4	Christmas was magical.
1:09.8	I lived in Canada when I was a kid and it was always snowing, so it just felt perfect.
1:14.4	Amazing. Well, at this time of year, we might look back at the Christmases from the past, from our childhood, and feel like they were happier or more magical than Christmas feels today.
1:26.5	Yes, thinking about the past can make us feel happy and sad at the same time.
1:31.9	It's a strange feeling we call nostalgia.
1:34.6	And we're going to be talking about nostalgia today, as well as Christmas memories and traditions.
	...

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