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Changing Christmas Celebrations: What Lies Ahead?

Christmas Card Depicting Botanical Ornamentation by newyorkpubliclibrary is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

English-stuff has various posts on Christmas traditions, mainly relating back to the Victorians (see https://english-stuff.com/2024/12/07/the-history-of-christmas-pudding-a-timeless-tradition/ – https://english-stuff.com/2021/12/22/a-victorian-christmas-dinner/ – https://english-stuff.com/2020/12/19/a-victorian-christmas/ )

But what about Christmas today?

Which elements of a 21st century Christmas celebration in the UK could change in the future?

The early start

I promise you that I have actually seen Christmas paraphernalia on sale in August … and I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if anyone has spotted Christmas merchandise even earlier than that. It was not always this way. The commercialisation of Christmas makes it come round more quickly every year.

Once we get to the end of October and Halloween is over, on 1st November the gloves are off. It’s an absolute free-for-all with Christmas publicity, offers, gifts, decorations, and foodstuffs in your shops. These things are on your TV and in your face till the day itself arrives.

A tongue-in -cheek question ….will the day arrive when we end one Christmas and immediately start preparing for the next?

Christmas cards

Christmas cards are greeting cards that people give or send to each other to send a message which can convey love, or a religious or humourous message. In the UK it is a way of celebrating the Yuletide season.

Christmas Greeting Card (ca. 1922) by newyorkpubliclibrary is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

Christmas cards became popular during the reign of Queen Victoria, like several of our other festive customs. (see https://english-stuff.com/2020/12/19/a-victorian-christmas/ ) The Christmas card industry is now worth approximately a whopping £1.4 billion.

But with the advent of digital messages, WhatsApp, AI and who knows what else, will this tradition be affected? There is still a huge quantity of Christmas cards in the 2025 post but there has been a slight decline in volume in recent years due to different consumer habits such as online messaging, plus the rise in postage costs. The Guardian published this article today: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/12/card-factory-issues-shock-profit-warning-during-peak-christmas-period

But it’s not all down to AI taking over. We are also probably more aware of the environmental costs — the carbon footprint and the paper involved.

Do you think Christmas cards will become extinct as time goes by?

Christmas stamps

https://png.pngtree.com/png-vector/20220926/ourmid/pngtree-sets-of-winter-christmas-stamp-postage-collection-snowman-christmas-vector-png-image_4105806.jpg

The first set of Christmas stamps were produced in 1966. But should we stop sending Christmas cards, will we lose our Christmas stamps too? Answers on a postcard with a Christmas stamp please.

Christmas crackers

If you are reading this from outside the UK, you may have no idea what this is – although the Commonwealth countries also have this tradition. Basically it’s a paper wrapper that generally contains a trinket, a joke and a paper crown. You pull the cracker with another person at each end at the Christmas dinner table. It makes an explosive sound. The contents then tumble out, hence the name cracker.

Invented in the mid-nineteenth century, crackers slowly became popular items on the Christmas table. Millions of Christmas crackers will be pulled apart this year. Yet revenue from sales has dipped slightly in recent years. This is mainly due to the tough economic climate and the fact that crackers are considered an option rather than an essential.

But it’s not all bad news, there’s evidence of innovation in the Christmas cracker business – for example, luxury crackers or joke-focused editions.

Christmas dinner

What to say about Christmas dinner? A traditional Christmas dinner includes roast turkey or a roasted joint of meat. It comes with crispy roast potatoes, seasonal vegetables (which must include Brussels sprouts even if you don’t like them), stuffing, and gravy. People also like to add their favourite accompaniments – for example, Yorkshire puddings, pigs in blankets, cauliflower cheese. And why not?

Industry data shows a decline in turkey consumption at Christmas over recent years. Fewer households are choosing turkey. Instead, they are opting for lamb, gammon or chicken.

Many members of the younger generation go one step further and ignore the traditional fare altogether – they might choose curry or pizza or Mexican food or whatever preference they have. And let’s not forget vegans and vegetarians.

Roast turkey remains part of British Christmas tradition, but its role is evolving. Fewer households are sticking exclusively with turkey, and a growing number of people are choosing alternatives or multiple mains for their festive meal. This reflects broader shifts in eating habits, costs and cultural preferences in the UK.

What do you think about these changes? Are they positive or negative?

Have you seen any other changes that could happen in the future?

Colourful Words for Drunk: A Creative Slang Guide

Introduction – Why We Get So Creative About Booze

Humans are funny creatures. We drink, we tell stories and then we invent dozens of different ways to say we’re drunk. One word is never enough. After all, “tipsy” isn’t the same as “smashed.” Language loves nuance, and apparently, so do we when we’ve had a few.

So, pour yourself something (or just grab a coffee if it’s too early), and let’s go on a tour of all the colourful, ridiculous, and occasionally historical ways we talk about being drunk.

Why So Many Words for “Drunk”?

We don’t have 30 different ways to say “hungry.” But when it comes to alcohol? Whole thesauruses have been filled. Why? Because drinking has always been social and humans get creative when they’re social.

Slang also softens things: “buzzed” sounds way cuter than “intoxicated by alcohol.” At the same time, exaggerations like “hammered” or “legless” help us laugh about what’s essentially a messy state of affairs.

Basically, we’ve been turning drunkenness into a language playground for centuries.

Classic & Common Synonyms

Let’s start with the words almost everyone recognises:

Tipsy – Polite, harmless, maybe even a little charming. Tipsy is someone y at a wedding, complimenting everyone’s outfit.
Buzzing – Very casual, very safe. Imagine a glass of wine after work.
Smashed / Wasted – No ambiguity here. If you’re “smashed,” you’re not going anywhere
Plastered – Old-school, but still used. “Plastered” suggests gravity is not on your side.

These are the solid, dependable workhorses of drunk-slang, which most Brits would use and recognise. And remember there are levels of drunkenness – “tipsy “suggesting a much lower level of inebriation than ” smashed”, “wasted” and “plastered” ( all conditions which we are not actually recommending, you understand.)

Colourful & Creative Slang

But there are some expressions which are basically cartoons in themselves:

Hammered – Precisely what happens to a nail after the hammer.
Sloshed – Conjures the delightful (or horrifying) image of liquid literally sloshing inside you.
Three sheets to the wind – A nautical phrase from the 1800’s, meaning the sails were not under control and the ship was lurching unsteadily.
Legless – A straightforward favourite in Britain, because in that state, you’ve got no legs left to stand on.

They’re vivid, they’re silly and they make you laugh even when you’re stone-cold sober.

A ship lurching on the sea – Deviant Art image created by Panna10

Creative Modern Additions

Fast forward to the 21st century and slang keeps evolving……..

Turnt – Popular in hip-hop culture, meaning hyped and drunk (or otherwise mentally altered).
Zooted – A blend of high and drunk, usually from drugs and alcohol.

The word “lit” meaning “drunk” dates back to the early 1900s long before Instagram existed. Nowadays it is used by to describe anything that looks fun and exciting.

And let’s be honest, in a few years we’ll probably have TikTok-inspired slang we can’t even imagine yet.

The Serious Side

Okay, drunk slang is hilarious, but drinking itself isn’t always. There’s a big difference between a glass of wine after work and and being “soused” on a Tuesday night. The fun words work best for silly, social situations, but are not always appropriate for more serious situations, where alcohol may have been the cause of a more serious incident. The words “inebriated”, “intoxicated” or ” impaired by alcohol” are generally used in these cases.

So, enjoy the humour, but know when to swap “sloshed” for something more thoughtful. Remember that depending on both the level of formality and drunkenness these words are not all interchangeable.

Conclusion – Your Turn!

From “squiffy” to “bladdered” to “stewed,” we’ve basically written a whole dictionary of words for “drunk”. And it’s still growing – every generation seems to invent more.

So next time you’re tempted to just say “drunk,” maybe try out something more colourful. Personally, I like “sozzled.”

👉 Pub Trivia: According to slang historians, English has more words for being drunk than for any other condition, even being in love. Make of that what you will.

How about you – what’s your favourite word for drunk?