圣诞节英语小报

下面是由美文故事整理的圣诞节英语小报，欢迎阅读。

The custom of sending Christmas cards started in Britain in 1840 when the first 'Penny Post' public postal deliveries began. (Helped by the new railway system, the public postal service was the 19th century's communication revolution, just as email is for us today.) As printing methods improved, Christmas cards were produced in large numbers from about 1860. They became even more popular in Britain when a card could be posted in an unsealed envelope for one half-penny - half the price of an ordinary letter.

圣诞贺卡可追溯到1840年统一便士邮政(uniform penny post)的出现，此项改革实现了英国境内邮件递送费用的标准化。(新铁路运输系统为公共邮政服务系统创造了条件，成就了19世纪的通信革命，与电子邮件对现代人的影响无异)。随着印刷术的改进，从1860年起，每年会生产大量的圣诞贺卡。当邮寄非密封的卡片只要半便士(普通信件邮费的一半)时，邮寄贺卡变得异常流行。

Traditionally, Christmas cards showed religious pictures - Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus, or other parts of the Christmas story. Today, pictures are often jokes, winter pictures, Father Christmas, or romantic scenes of life in past times.

从传统上来讲，圣诞贺卡都印有一些基督教方面的图片，比如圣母玛丽，约瑟和小耶稣，或者其它包含有圣诞故事意义的图片。今天的圣诞贺卡通常是笑话、冬季景致，圣诞老人以及一些反应生活中浪漫场面的图片。

为什么圣诞节要戴红色的圣诞帽，英国人圣诞节戴纸帽子的悠久传统

All over Britain on Christmas Day, families can be found sitting around their dining tables enjoying a traditional lunch of roast turkey with all the trimmings - and all, regardless of age, wearing coloured paper hats. It is rumoured that even the Queen wears her paper hat over lunch!

圣诞节当天，全英国的家庭都会坐在餐桌前，吃一顿传统的圣诞大餐，塞满了各种馅料的烤火鸡。无论年龄老幼，所有人都会在头上戴一顶彩色纸做成的纸帽子。据说，就连伊莉莎白女王也会戴纸帽子哦!

So why this quaint tradition? Where do these paper hats come from? The answer is the Christmas Cracker.

那为什么会有这个古怪的传统呢?戴纸帽子的传统来源于哪里?答案就在另一项圣诞传统活动——圣诞拉炮!

A Christmas Cracker is a cardboard paper tube, wrapped in brightly coloured paper and twisted at both ends. There is a banger inside the cracker, two strips of chemically impregnated paper that react with friction so that when the cracker is pulled apart by two people, the cracker makes a bang.

圣诞拉炮是用硬纸板做的纸筒，再用色彩鲜艳的彩纸包裹在外面，两端拧紧。在拉炮里会有一个爆竹，当两个人拉动拉炮两端时，拉炮里的两条浸渍纸就会发生摩擦，发出“嘣”的响声。

Inside the cracker there is a paper crown made from tissue paper, a motto or joke on a slip of paper and a little gift.

拉炮里会装有纸做的皇冠、写在纸上的名言或笑话，还会有一些小礼物。

Christmas crackers are a British tradition dating back to Victorian times when in the early 1850s, London confectioner Tom Smith started adding a motto to his sugared almond bon-bons which he sold wrapped in a twisted paper package.

圣诞拉炮成为英国传统的历史可以追溯到维多利亚时期，约在19世纪50年代早期，伦敦的一个糖果商汤姆-史密斯把写有名言的纸片放在了他售卖的糖果包装里，包装方式就是在糖果外用纸将两头拧紧。

The paper hat was added to the cracker in the early 1900s. The cracker was soon adopted as a traditional festive custom and today virtually every household has at least one box of crackers to pull over Christmas.

到了20世纪初，纸帽子也被放到了圣诞拉炮里。很快，拉炮就成了英国人过圣诞节的传统习俗。现在，所有的英国家庭至少都会准备一盒拉炮留到圣诞节时来拉响。