In Birmingham, Christmas brings a variety of traditions to life, from festive meals and family gatherings to unique customs. I'm here in the city centre, speaking to people to find out how they mark the festive season and what it represents for both themselves and their families.
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00:00Well we're not religious at all. The family doesn't really, we don't go to church or anything like that.
00:09It's all about just getting each other a few presents and nothing major.
00:16So I usually spend it at home with my close family, husband, two children.
00:21We have a slightly odd, well we've developed a slightly odd Christmas tradition over recent years which is called Tat and Treasure.
00:28And it's basically around one man's tat is another man's treasure.
00:31And it's basically sort of passing on well thought out but unwanted gifts.
00:38And there's a series of questions. If you get a question right you get to delve into the tat or treasure bag.
00:43And yeah, you get to keep either what you've chosen or you can choose again to gift it on sort of around the table.
00:50Well Christmas to me is a religious event. I'm a Christian myself and I celebrate it by going to church.
00:58As regards all this commercialism, there's far too much commercialism and not enough focus on the actual version of the actual events itself.
01:13This starts far too early and I'm just fed up with it.
01:19Oh well it's a lovely time of year where people just get time to stop really.
01:24I don't have any firm traditions because I believe that Christmas should be flexible so it depends what's going on at the time.
01:31It'll probably be quite a quiet Christmas but just nice and peaceful.
01:35Christmas for us in Australia is the same as Christmas here. It's a getting together of family.
01:42For us though it's the middle of summer so Christmas is spent usually around the swimming pool with a barbecue and salads and fish.
01:53It's not hot roast meals.