Christmas Vocabulary for Adult ESL Students: 5 Topics, 40 Words (Free PDF)

Christmas vocabulary is the easy part of December. Your students already know tree and present. What they are missing is the language around the holiday: what is on the table, what to say when a gift is the wrong size, how their own family's Christmas Eve sounds in English, and the expressions their colleagues use in March without thinking of Christmas at all.

Below are five Christmas vocabulary topics for adult classes, from A1 to C1. Each one has eight words with a plain definition and an example sentence an adult would actually say, a way to present it, and a page in the free Christmas Vocabulary Pack. Each topic ends with a lesson from our library that takes the same words into a full hour. Teach one topic as a warmer, or one a day in the last week before the break.

1. Decorating the Home

A1-A2Beginner

This is the entry point. Every word is a thing students can point at, and every adult has decorated a home, a classroom or an office at least once. Beginners leave with something true to say about their own home within ten minutes.

How to present it

Ask students to describe their home in December before you give any words. Most will get as far as tree and lights and stop. That is the moment to hand out page 2. Students label the picture alone, check with a partner, and then use the same picture to practice on, under and next to. They finish with three sentences about their own home, like We put the angel on the shelf next to the photos.

For true beginners, Advent Calendars (A1-A2) uses some very strange advent calendars to get students talking about December, and Christmas Greetings (A1-A2) adds the wishes they need for cards and messages. One level up, Christmas Decorations (A2-B1) takes the same nouns into a reading about English decorations and a conversation about students' own memories.

2. The Christmas Table

A2-B1Lower Intermediate

Food is the topic students talk about longest, because every family has its own menu and its own rules. It also carries useful verbs. To carve and to make a toast are what happens at the table, and students who know them can describe a whole evening, not only a list of dishes.

How to present it

Start with one question: what is on your table on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? Write the dishes on the board in students' own words, then match them to the four groups on page 3: main course, side dish, dessert and drink. The menus will differ. Carp and twelve dishes in one family, turkey and gravy in another. That difference is what carries the conversation. Then move to the verbs: who carves in your family, and who makes the toast?

Christmas Food (A2-B1) reads about a traditional English Christmas dinner, then students share their own traditions and plan a menu together. For listening, Christmas Pudding with Jamie Oliver (A2-B1) follows Jamie Oliver's video recipe. And because the table is also where families ask awkward questions, Surviving Family Dinner (A2-B1) teaches students how to answer them politely.

3. Gifts and Shopping

B1-B2Intermediate

Gift vocabulary is where adult students start to sound natural. Most of them know present and buy. Few know gift receipt, stocking stuffer or regift, and these are the words for the situations everybody has lived through: the sweater that does not fit, the office Secret Santa, the store at five o'clock on December 24.

How to present it

Tell a short true story about a gift that went wrong, then ask students for theirs. Their stories will need the words, so give the list after the first two. On page 4, students choose the right word for eight situations, then decide what they would do in three real dilemmas, such as a Secret Santa mug they do not like. The dilemmas are where they disagree, and where the words get used.

At A1-A2, Best Gifts has students talk about the gifts they would choose for the people they love. Christmas Gift Guide (A2-B1) reads an article about small brands and practices describing gifts. For B1-B2, Is It OK to Regift? turns the last word on the list into a full debate, and The Office Gift Dilemma (B2-C1) covers the awkward side of gifts at work.

4. Traditions in Europe and Latin America

B1-B2Intermediate

The comparison topic. Your students already have the traditions. What they lack is the English to explain them. A Ukrainian student knows exactly what happens on Christmas Eve but has never said twelve meatless dishes or we fast until the first star out loud. This topic gives them those words, then lets them compare.

How to present it

Ask what the most important evening of the holiday is in each student's family: December 24, December 25 or January 6. Then hand out page 5. Five people from Lviv, Kraków, Seville, Mexico City and Nuremberg each describe their Christmas in a short text, and students fill the gaps with the eight words. After that, they decide who says each of six sentences and write two sentences about their own family. In a mixed class, pair students from different countries for the last step.

Christmas Around the World (B1-B2) takes this topic around the globe with discussion and creative tasks. History of the Christmas Tree (B1-B2) watches a video about where the Christmas tree came from, and Christmas Songs (A2-B1, free) uses classic songs for listening. When the class moves on to January, New Year’s Traditions (B2-C1) does the same comparison for New Year.

5. Christmas Expressions for Every Month

B2-C1Upper Intermediate to Advanced

These eight expressions use Christmas words, but adults use them all year, mostly at work. A colleague who calls the new parking garage a white elephant in June is not talking about Christmas. That is why they are worth teaching in December: the season gives you a reason to introduce them, and students keep using them long after the decorations come down.

How to present it

Give the expressions without their meanings and ask students to guess from the words. Christmas came early is easy. A white elephant and don't look a gift horse in the mouth are not, and those are the ones students will remember. On page 6, they complete a team chat from the week before the holidays, fix one wrong word in four more sentences, and write two true sentences about their own work or studies.

Speak Like The Holiday (B1-B2) uses real dialogue from the film The Holiday to make students sound more natural and polite. Christmas Movies (B2-C1) moves from expressions to the films behind them, and A Christmas Carol is where the first word on this list comes from. For classes that write to clients, Business Holiday Cards (B1-B2) covers holiday greetings for work, from formal emails to personal notes.

Turning the word lists into practice

A word list is not a lesson. Three things turn these into one.

• Push students to produce. Matching a word to a definition is recognition, and it is gone within a week. Every page of the pack ends with students writing something true about their own home, family or work, which is the part that sticks.
• Use your students' own Christmas. Your class celebrates, so the best material is in the room. A student who explains kutia or Three Kings' Day to a partner uses topic 4 for real.
• Recycle across the week. If you teach the table on Monday, ask for leftovers and gravy again inside the gift dilemmas on Wednesday. Words that come back three times stay.

Mistakes your students will make

Christmas lessons by level

Every lesson in the table is also in our Christmas and New Year lesson plans post, sorted by level. For speaking, 30 Christmas conversation questions for adults pairs well with topics 2 and 3.

Final thoughts

Only the first topic is about things on a shelf. The rest are a menu, the small dramas of giving, the words for a student's own family traditions, and eight expressions that work in any month. December gives you the reason to teach them. Your students will still be using leftovers, gift receipt and a white elephant in spring.