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In the UK, the main Christmas Meal is usually eaten at lunchtime or early afternoon on Christmas Day. It's normally roast turkey, roast vegetables and sometimes bacon and sausages. It's often served with bread sauce. Traditionally, and before turkey was available, roast beef or goose was the main Christmas meal.

Dessert is often Christmas Pudding. Mince pies and lots of chocolates are often eaten as well!

The dinner table is decorated with a Christmas Cracker for each person and sometimes flowers and candles.

The UK is also famous for Christmas Cake It's traditionally a rich fruit cake covered with marzipan and icing - and often top with Christmas themed cake decorations like a spring of holly.

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White Christmas is an unusual occasion in the UK.
people always want to know if it will be a 'White Christmas'. The British definition, used by the UK Meteorological Office (who say if it has been a White Christmas in the UK or not!), is that a single snow flake has been seen falling in the 24 hours of Christmas Day!
However, for most parts of the United Kingdom, Christmas is only at the beginning of the period when it's likely to snow. We are more likely to see snow between January and March than in December.

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New Year's Eve is regarded as a time for friends. Most people attend a gathering at this time and ' see in ' the new year together, often drinking a large amount of alcohol as they do so. Some people in the London region go to the traditional celebrations at Trafalgar Square where there is an enormous Christmas tree - an annual gift from the people of Norway ). In Scotland, New Year, called Hogmanay, is given particular importance so much importance that, in Scotland only, 2 January as well as New Year's Day ) is also a public holiday, so people have two days to recover from their New Year's Eve parties instead of just one! The crowd at the Hogmanay street party in Edinburgh is actually much larger than that in Trafalgar Square. Some British New Year customs, such as the singing of the song Auld Lang Syne, originated in Scotland. Another, less common, one is the custom of ' first footing ', in which the first person to visit a house in the new year is supposed to arrive with tokens of certain important items for survival ( such as a lump of coal for the fire ). Most people go back to work and school soon after New Year.

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Christmas is the one occasion in modern Britain when many customs are enthusiastically observed by most ordinary people at the family level. Even people who consider themselves to be anti-religious quite happily wish each other a ' Happy Christmas ' or a ' Merry Christmas '. Every November on Oxford Street (one of the main shopping streets in the center of London), a famous personality ceremoniously switches on the Christmas lights ' (decorations), thus officially 'marking the start of the period of frantic Christmas shopping. Most people buy presents for the other members of their household and also for other relatives, especially children. Some people also buy presents for their close friends. And to a wider circle of friends and relatives, and sometimes also to working associates and neighbors, they send Christmas cards. Some even send such greetings to people who they have not seen for many years, often using the excuse of this tradition to include a letter passing on the year's news. People also buy Christmas trees. Most households have a tree and decorate it themselves ( in many cases, with colored lights ). Most people also put up other decorations around the house. Exactly what these vary a great deal, but certain symbols of Christmas, such as bits of the holly and mistletoe plants, are very common, and the Christmas cards which the household has received are usually displayed. A few people go even further and put up decorations outside their houses. These most commonly consist of lights arranged in the shape of seasonal motifs. A few households also have a ' crib ', a model depicting the birth of Christ. Another feature of December is the singing of carols ( usually, but not always, with a religious theme ). These are sung in churches and schools, often at special concerts, and also, though less often than in the past, by groups of people who go from house to house raising money for charitable causes. An indication of the importance attached to Christmas in British people's minds is that many people who do not go to church during the rest of the year do so at this time, and churches find attendance swelling by three times its normal amount. Customs concerning the role of Father Christmas ( Santa Claus ) in the giving of gifts vary from family to family. Most households continue the traditional child's concept that Father Christmas comes down the chimney on the night of Christmas Eve, even though most houses no longer have a working chimney! Many children lay out Christmas stockings at the foot of their beds, which they expect to see filled when they wake up on Christmas morning. Most families lay out presents, wrapped, around or on the Christmas tree, and these are opened at some time on Christmas Day. Other activities in which many families engage on Christmas Day are eating Christmas dinner and listening to the Queen's Christmas message. This ten-minute television broadcast is normally the only time in the year when the monarch speaks directly to ' her people on television. There is a general feeling that Christmas is a time for families. Many of the gatherings are in houses on Christmas Day. In many families, Christmas is the only time that such gatherings occur.