How Christmas Trees are Made

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• havo, vwo
• Leerjaar 1,2

How Christmas trees are made

Do you put up Christmas trees in your home or town? It's traditional to put up Christmas trees in Britain but nowadays most people prefer artificial ones, not real ones. Watch this video to find out where they come from and how they're made!

Do the preparation task first. Then, watch the video and do the exercises. If you need help, you can read the transcript (on the last slide) at any time.

Preparation: Matching

1........ PVC

2........ a branch

3........ a needle

4........ a factory

5........ a blade

6........ a trunk

Match the words with the correct definition and write a – f next to the number 1 – 6.

a. a building where products are made with machines 

b. a knife or a sharp edge

c. polyvinyl chloride, a kind of plastic

d. a thin, sharp leaf on a tree

e. an arm of a tree

f. the main body of a tree

2. Check your understanding: multiple choice

1. What country did the tradition of having Christmas trees come from? 

a. Britain

 b. China
 c. Germany

2. Who made them popular in Britain?

a. Queen Victoria.           

b. Shakespeare             

c. King Henry VIII

3. In Chinese, what does ‘sheng dan shu’ mean?

a. Christmas tree             

b. factory
c. Father Christmas

select the correct answer

4. What are the Christmas trees made of?

a. PVC and wood            
b. PVC and metal
c. wood and metal

5. Why are the branches pulled through a small coil?

a. to stick the needles together.        
b. to separate the needles

c. to cut the branches down to size

6. Why are the branches cut by hand?

a. because a machine would break the needl

 b. because a machine would bend the needles.          
c. because a machine would flatten the needles

3. Check your understanding: ordering

Write a number (1-6) to put these sentences in order.

............. The branches are attached to the tree trunk and the Christmas tree is finished!

 ............. The shredded PVC is twisted around a metal wire and the needles are separated.

 ............. The branches are cut to size by hand. 

............. First of all, flat strips of PVC are stuck together.

 ............. Then the PVC is shredded by a circular blade to make the needles. 

............. Any sharp edges on the branches are bent over.

4. Check your grammar: gap fill – passives
Complete the gaps with the passive form of the verb in brackets.

1. The tradition of having a Christmas tree _______________ to have begun in Germany around the 18th century. (BELIEVE)
2. Queen Victoria _______________ standing next to a Christmas tree with her family. (PICTURE)

3. Millions of Christmas trees _______________ in China. (MANUFACTURE)

4. Strips of PVC _______________ by a circular blade. (SHRED)

5. Then they _______________ around a metal wire. (TWIST)

6.The needles _______________ by pulling them through a small coil. (SEPARATE)

7. The branches _______________ to size by hand. (CUT)

8. Sharp edges _______________ over so children don’t hurt themselves. (BEND)

Do you put up a tree at Christmas?

Is Christmas an important holiday for you and your family?

Do you have lots of plants and flowers in your house? 

Why or why not?

Transcript

The last 20 years have seen a huge increase in the Chinese economy, thanks partly to Christmas trees. The tradition of Christmas trees is believed to have begun in Germany around the 18th century, but it was Queen Victoria who made them fashionable in Britain when she was pictured standing next to one with her family in 1846.

This factory in Suzhou makes ‘sheng dan shu’, as they call them, in all sorts of sizes. And this is how they produce a two-metre-high version.

The branches start out as flat strips of polyvinyl chloride, or PVC to you and me. The reels are unravelled and as they pass through rollers they’re bonded and stick together. 

Then a circular blade slices through the PVC, shredding it and making the needles. The shredded PVC is twisted around a metal wire and then pulled through a small coil. This separates the needles and makes them nice and bushy.

These machines produce branches measuring around six metres long. A tree with branches this big isn’t very practical, so they’re cut to size by hand. They’re cut this way because a mechanical cutting machine would flatten the needles back down.

A bunch of branches are then sewn together using a polypropylene twine, and the sharp edges are bent over to stop little children hurting themselves as they hang their baubles from the tree.

Now all that’s left to do is attach the branches to the metal trunks of the tree and it becomes one of the one million sheng dan shu that are made here at this factory in China. Happy Christmas!

Lesson from the British Council adapted by Susan Corrigan