The history of Father Christmas – Reading practice.
The film Father Christmas – Listening practice.
My Christmas blog: Vocabulary and more about Christmas in .

I have included vocabulary notes in the article for the more difficult words. You will see the definitions in brackets ( ) after the words and in pale grey.

1 The History of Father Christmas

One of my students told me that Father Christmas, also known as Santa Claus, was invented by Coca Cola. I was shocked! How could he think that the wonderful old gentleman of my childhood dreams was only a marketing strategy? (a plan to sell something).

Father Christmas delivers presents to children all over the world during the night of the 24th of December. In England we traditionally open our presents in the morning on the 25th. So, who is this old man who visits the bedrooms of children worldwide to bring them gifts?

Today I’d like you to learn where Father Christmas comes from and his transformation. I think it’s pretty (quite) interesting. Below are two links to great clear articles about the history of Santa Claus.

The first article I recommend is from the web page whychristmas.com which is full of Christmas information.

Click here to read the History of Santa on whychristmas.com article.

The second link is from the BBC History Extra magazine, where you can also find articles on Christmas through the ages (through history).

Click here to read about the History of Santa from History EXTRA.

Use a dictionary for words you don’t understand or even better try to guess the word’s meaning from the context of the sentence.

I hope you enjoy reading them and then you can go on to (continue to) tell everyone about the history of this man. Who, of course, exists! =)

2 Father Christmas, the 1991 film

“Father Christmas” is a lovely animated film from 1991. The grumpy (irritated) side we see of Santa here, complaining and tired, may surprise you, but he is still Santa, a good person and loves children. It is based on two books by Raymond Briggs.

A word which Father Christmas uses a lot in the film is BLOOMING which is a soft/polite way to show irritation (like swearing with bad words but Blooming isn’t a bad word and can be used in everyday situations and with children).

The film is complete on Youtube and there are English subtitles available in captions if you need them.