Jingle All the Day

Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

• tons of
• epic
• hokey
• Muzak

• the last minute
• stomach
• inundated
• stuck in your head

• gospel
• spot

2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

Some people forget to buy their Christmas presents until the last minute. It’s sort of amazing to forget that Christmas is coming because for a month or two before the holiday, Christmas music plays in every store and shop, much to the annoyance of most (imagine the poor people who work somewhere that plays Christmas music!).

A lot of pop stars release Christmas songs that are really good, and classics like “Carol of the Bells” and “Jingle Bells” never get old. But you have to be in a particularly festive mood to be able to stomach them, and the holiday is often more hectic than festive. Jason and Marni have almost lost their minds because of Christmas music.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

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2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Marni

Jason

Marni:  Hum hum hum. Hum hum hum. I’m sorry. I cannot get these Christmas tunes out of my head.

Jason:  You have to hum them too? They’re in every store, everywhere. Every, like, radio station is playing them…

Marni:  I know, I’m sorry. Everywhere I go I’m just inundated with Christmas music, and it’s like it just gets stuck in your head and you have to either just embrace it and sing it or hum it or just kinda go crazy.

Jason:  There’s only one place that I actually like Christmas music, like hearing it. Any place that’s like a really, super urban spot, like if there’s tall buildings and it’s really cold and there’s tons of people in coats and Christmas lights in all the trees. Then the Christmas music feels sort of epic somehow, especially if it’s la la la, like that operatic…

Marni:  And more religious-oriented?

Jason:  Maybe, yeah. I mean what drives me crazy though is if I’m at, like, K Mart in the suburbs and then there’s just really hokey Muzak Christmas music.

Marni:  That’s what it’s about. You just gotta accept it that in December you’re just going to be inundated with Christmas music, it’s going to be stuck in your head, you’re going to hear it all the time and then it’s just gone and you don’t hear it for a year, so…

Jason:  That’s true. It’s weird when people release Christmas albums, but I guess they are kind of successful.

Marni:  They are successful. Like Josh Groban...

Jason:  Twisted Sister has a Christmas album that did as well as, like, their other albums did.

Marni:  That’s hilarious. I love that. That’s actually really funny.

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Lesson MP3

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