Take Away English-Christmas Lights 圣诞灯彩

Crowds watching the switching on of the Christmas lights in London

Every year in November, many town centres around the UK are lit up with Christmas lights in preparation for the Christmas period. Some of the big cities in the UK have very extravagant¹ light displays. Sometimes celebrities² switch on the Christmas lights.

Oxford³ Street in London is one of the most famous high streets in the world and the switching on of the Christmas lights is a very big event. Gary Reeves is the chief executive of the New West End Company, which organises everything to do with the Christmas lights in London.

“It generates a really good reason for Londoners to come to their high street to see a great event – see the lights come on and really it signals the start of the Christmas trading period for the retailers⁴.”

It certainly was a big event this year - Westlife switched on the lights.

“What you can see is over 10,000 people congregating⁵ to see one of the biggest pop acts say 3-2-1 and on come the Christmas lights.”

It’s not only Londoners who enjoy the event. There are people from all around the world come to Oxford Street, including tourists from China.

“We’re from Shanghai. It’s great, fantastic – Did you enjoy Westlife? – Oh yes, of course, I screamed!”

There have been Christmas lights on London’s major shopping streets for over forty years now and every year a lot of planning goes into them.

“In terms of designing and producing the lights it takes twelve months – in terms of putting them up it takes roughly three to four weeks to put them up and two weeks to take them down.”

London is extremely organised in planning its Christmas lights. It might surprise you to know that arrangements are already under way for the Christmas lights in 2008!

GLOSSARY 词汇表
lit up 张灯结彩 extravagant 华丽的；五彩缤纷的 switch on 点燃 chief executive (公司）总裁 Londoners 伦敦人 retailers 零售商 screamed 惊叫 designing 设计 putting them up 悬挂 roughly 大体上	period 阶段; 期间 celebrities 名人 high streets 商业街 generates 产生; 激发 the Christmas trading period 圣诞交易(采购)期 congregating 聚集 in terms of 就…而言 producing 生产; 制作 take them down 取下；摘下 under way 筹备之中

 

1 extravagant   

adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的

参考例句：

• They tried to please him with fulsome compliments and extravagant gifts.他们想用溢美之词和奢华的礼品来取悦他。
• He is extravagant in behaviour.他行为放肆。

2 celebrities   

n.（尤指娱乐界的）名人( celebrity的名词复数 )；名流；名声；名誉

参考例句：

• He only invited A-list celebrities to his parties. 他只邀请头等名流参加他的聚会。
• a TV chat show full of B-list celebrities 由众多二流人物参加的电视访谈节目

3 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

4 retailers   

零售商，零售店( retailer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• High street retailers reported a marked increase in sales before Christmas. 商业街的零售商报告说圣诞节前销售量显著提高。
• Retailers have a statutory duty to provide goods suitable for their purpose. 零售商有为他们提供符合要求的货品的法定义务。

5 congregating   

（使）集合，聚集( congregate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The spatial distribution patterns of larvae and pupae are congregating distribution. 幼虫和蛹的空间分布均为聚集分布。
• He says victims of violence are congregating there because they feel safer. 他说暴力的受害者聚集在这里因为他们觉得更安全。