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• There are some UK Christmas traditions that people from the US haven’t experienced before.
• Every Christmas, families gather to watch pantomimes or meet their school friends at the pub.
• They also eat Yorkshire puddings, mince pies, Christmas pudding, and Christmas cake.

If you call him “Father Christmas” instead of Santa Claus, you just might be from the United Kingdom.

Christmas in the United Kingdom differs slightly from celebrations in America and elsewhere around the world.

From what is traditionally served at a Christmas Day feast to festive activities and childhood traditions, families across the pond have their own unique and quirky ways of celebrating the holidays.

Something that’s universal, though: the cost of the holidays and the anxiety it brings some families. A third of British people surveyed by YouGov in November said they were at least “fairly worried” about the cost of this Christmas and its effect on their finances.

Here are 18 British Christmas traditions that might surprise you.

Pantomimes, or “pantos,” are plays performed around Christmastime in the UK.

Pantos are humorous, slapstick entertainment for the whole family, often featuring men dressed in drag. They are sometimes based on famous fairy tales or stories, such as “Cinderella,” “Peter Pan,” or “The Wizard of Oz.” 

Pantomimes rely on specific tropes. For example, there’s often a villain who will sneak up on the protagonist intermittently throughout the play. It’s then the role of the audience to scream, “He’s behind you!” to the main character while they struggle to figure out what’s going on.

Yorkshire puddings are perfect with gravy, but people outside the UK may have never heard of them.

A traditional British roast dinner wouldn’t be complete without Yorkshire puddings filled with Bisto or homemade gravy. Yorkshire puddings — not to be confused with sweet puddings — are made of eggs, flour, and milk or water.

After they’re cooked in hot oil in the oven, they end up with a distinct hole in the middle. They closely resemble what Americans know as popovers.

While Yorkshire puddings are a common feature at Sunday dinners throughout the year, they’re also eaten at Christmastime, although some argue they have no place on a Christmas plate.

Santa Claus is referred to as “Father Christmas.”

While some in the UK refer to Old Saint Nick as Santa Claus, it is widely accepted that Father Christmas is his more traditionally British name.

“Santa Claus” is seen as an Americanism, and The Telegraph reported that even the British National Trust said that “Santa Claus should be known as ‘Father Christmas’ in stately homes and historic buildings because the name is more British.”

British children hang Christmas stockings at the ends of their bed.

In America, Christmas stockings are hung by the fireplace with care. However, some British children hang their stockings at the ends of their beds for Father Christmas to fill up while they’re sleeping. 

Christmas Eve is a time for school friends to reunite.

The Thanksgiving weekend is viewed in the United States as an opportunity for students to reunite with friends from high school or middle school. In the UK, it’s a tradition for school friends to come together on Christmas Eve, often at the local bar or pub.

Christmas pudding is a traditional British dessert popular during the holiday season.

A Christmas pudding is a dense fruit cake often made weeks or even months in advance. This process allows the dried fruit to absorb the alcohol that’s regularly poured onto the cake in the weeks leading up to consumption.

On Christmas, the cake is set alight and then topped with a sauce of brandy butter or rum butter, cream, lemon cream, ice cream, custard, or sweetened béchamel. It is also sometimes sprinkled with caster or powdered sugar.

For many years, Queen Elizabeth II even gifted each member of her staff a Christmas pudding from Tesco.

Another dessert of choice is Christmas cake, a rich fruit cake covered with marzipan and icing.

While fruit cake is certainly a polarizing dessert wherever you are, Brits seem to make it a little better with thick, sweet white icing. Often, Christmas cake is also topped with festive holly decorations. 

Mince pies are pastries filled with dried fruits and spices, traditionally eaten at Christmas.

The BBC reported that the first-known mince pie recipe dates back to an 1830s English cookbook. By the mid-17th century, people reportedly began associating the small pies with the Christmas season.

At the time, they were traditionally filled with pork or other kinds of meat, sage, and other spices. Nowadays, the pies are filled with dried fruits and sugar powder.

British Christmas desserts are often enjoyed with brandy butter.

The perfect accompaniment to Christmas pudding and mince pies, brandy butter consists of butter and sugar beaten together, with brandy added last. Rum butter is an alternative.

The result is still butter-like in consistency, and it’s served cold alongside desserts. Americans might know it as “hard sauce.”

Brits say “Happy Christmas” instead of “Merry Christmas.”

You might remember a scene from the first “Harry Potter” movie in which Ron says, “Happy Christmas, Harry!” While this may sound strange to an American, saying “Happy Christmas” is commonplace in the UK, as opposed to “Merry Christmas.” 

Christmas crackers are cardboard tubes wrapped in brightly colored paper and twisted at each end, which two people pull for a fun surprise.

Christmas crackers are often pulled at the start of the meal, and the paper hats found inside are worn throughout the meal. Also inside each cracker is a “banger,” which makes a loud pop when the cracker is pulled, a joke, and a small prize.

The jokes are usually cheesy and festive. For example: “Why did Santa’s helper go to the doctor? Because he had low elf esteem!” 

However, be sure not to pack them if you’re traveling to or from the UK on an airplane — they’re not permitted to go through TSA in carry-on luggage.

“Top of the Pops” is a television special featuring performances of the year’s most popular songs.

On Christmas, the BBC typically airs a holiday special of the since-retired show “Top of the Pops,” featuring performances from the year’s most popular musicians.

The program ran weekly from 1964 until 2006, when it was canceled. People were so upset that the BBC decided to keep the Christmas special, which airs late in the morning on December 25.

Millions of people watch the King’s annual televised Christmas Day speech every year.

Every year, families gather to watch the royal Christmas address, informally known as the Queen’s or King’s speech.

The Telegraph reported that the first Christmas address was 251 words long, but Queen Elizabeth II later came to average 656 words in each speech. It is often one of the most-watched television programs on Christmas Day in the UK.

Christmas commercials are as talked-about as Super Bowl commercials are in the United States.

While Super Bowl commercials are highly scrutinized in the US, Brits pay just as close attention to Christmas commercials.

Not only is the John Lewis ad, or “advert,” a Christmas tradition, but almost every supermarket and clothing brand tries to get in on the buzz with a talked-about Christmas commercial.

Brits also anticipate which song will become the annual “Christmas No. 1” single.

The British “Christmas No. 1” has been a tradition for over 50 years. Starting in 1952, the top song on the British singles chart has been a coveted spot every Christmas. Christmas No. 1 alums include The Beatles, Queen, Ed Sheeran, and more.

While some Christmas No. 1s have indeed been Christmas songs — “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” by Band Aid II in 1989, for example — they don’t have to be.

School nativity plays are a popular tradition in UK primary schools.

While religious elementary schools in the United States may put on nativity plays, they are arguably much more popular and part of the culture in Britain.

In the popular British Christmas movie “Love Actually,” the characters even attend a Christmas nativity play.

Brits take advantage of after-Christmas sales on Boxing Day.

Boxing Day is often referred to as the British equivalent of Black Friday, but there are notable differences between the two holidays. Boxing Day, which is a public holiday in the UK, falls on the day after Christmas and has a rich cultural history in Great Britain.

Originating in the mid-1600s, the day was traditionally a day off for servants. On this day, servants would receive a “Christmas Box,” or gift, from their master. The servants would then return home on Boxing Day to give “Christmas Boxes” to their families.

In the UK, it can be bad luck to keep your decorations up for more than 12 days after Christmas.

Another difference between US and UK Christmas customs is evident after all the festivities have ended. 

In the UK, it’s tradition to take down your tree and decorations 12 days after Christmas — known as Twelfth Night — to avoid bad luck in the new year.

In the Anglican tradition, Twelfth Night, or Epiphany Eve, is the day before Epiphany, which celebrates the coming of the Magi to baby Jesus and marks the end of the 12 days of Christmas. 

• Anthropic philosopher Amanda Askell shared her approach to effective AI prompting.
• Askell emphasized clarity, experimentation, and philosophical thinking in prompt engineering.
• Anthropic advises treating AI like a new employee needing explicit, precise instructions.

A cornerstone of philosophy is the ability to communicate ideas clearly and precisely.

That’s also the key to getting the most out of an AI model, according to Anthropic’s own resident philosopher.

Amanda Askell, a member of Anthropic’s technical team and a trained philosopher, says that effective prompting requires striking the right balance between several considerations.

On Anthropic’s “Ask Me Anything” podcast, Askell, who studied philosophy at Oxford and New York University, according to her LinkedIn, explained her thought process.

“It is really hard to distill what is going on because one thing is just like a willingness to interact with the models a lot and to really look at output after output,” she said.

Good prompters should be “very experimental,” she said.

Prompting goes beyond experimentation, however, and this is where her philosophical training has helped.

“This is where I actually do think philosophy can actually be useful for prompting in a way because, like, a lot of my job is just being like I try and explain some issue or concern or thought that I’m having to the model as clearly as possible,” she said.

That emphasis on clarity is important not just to help people refine their own prompts but also in understanding AI itself.

In a “Prompt Engineering Overview” that Anthropic published in July, the company said users interacting with Claude, its chatbot, should think of it as “a brilliant, but very new employee (with amnesia) who needs explicit instructions.”

“Claude does not have context on your norms, styles, guidelines, or preferred ways of working. The more precisely you explain what you want, the better Claude’s response will be,” Anthropic wrote.

Veteran venture capitalist Marc Andreessen said last month that the power of AI comes from treating it as a”thought partner.”

“Part of the art of AI is what questions to ask it,” he said.

Those who master this skill can land lucrative jobs as prompt engineers, which have a median salary of $150,000, according to levels.fyi, a platform for tech workers to research and compare salaries.

• A Malibu home once owned by Kanye West is being offered as a fractional real estate asset.
• A new venture allows investors to buy memberships for access and equity in luxury properties.
• The owner of the property hopes to transform West’s former home into a Soho House-like space.

Do you want to own a piece of a home once owned by Kanye West?

Steven “Bo” Belmont is betting that you do.

Belmont, who purchased the Tadao Ando-built home from West for $21 million in 2024, has big plans for this concrete slab in Malibu: turning it into a luxury community space for members in the vein of the Soho House. Belmont wants to let multiple people share in his property by selling paid memberships for access to the space and a share in its equity.

There’s just one complication: West famously gutted the home before selling it.

“The equity in this is built on the finishing of the property,” Belmont told Business Insider. “So when they invest, those dollars go toward just moving that property down the line.”

Fractional real estate’s main purpose is to democratize real estate investing so more people can get in on the action. Belmont is admittedly raising the barrier to entry with his latest venture, Populis, offering not just the potential to make money, but opulent experiences — like hanging out at events in a Tadao Ando-built beach house in Malibu once owned by a famous rapper.

“We made the entry a little bit higher, which tends to cater to more of an accredited investor,” Belmont said. “But as we push through the luxury end of Populis, we will absolutely be spinning one out once we have the bandwidth to accommodate the full democratization of real estate and other goods, other real-world assets.”

Fractional ownership for the wealthy

The Malibu mansion is listed for $12 million by Christie’s International Real Estate SoCal, but that doesn’t tell the entire story.

“This is not a traditional whole-asset sale,” the listing reads. “It is a private, membership-driven opportunity designed for buyers seeking exposure to blue-chip real estate without assuming full ownership, management, or renovation responsibility.”

Belmont, alongside Alexandra Damsker and Matthew Hintz, founded Populis, which is essentially a crowdfunding endeavor to turn “architecturally significant properties” into Soho House-like spaces while also giving investors a chance to make some money.

Belmont isn’t solely in the business of catering to the ultrawealthy investor. His company Belwood Investments caters to the everyday investor looking to participate in luxury real estate flips.

But for a product like the Malibu house, he figured he needed some extra muscle in backing power — enter Populis.

The membership program, which is beginning with the Malibu house, aims to be a “civic movement of architects, artists, and outsiders reclaiming culture’s rarest places,” according to its website.

Through four different membership tiers, investors — after investing anywhere from $15,000 to over $100,000 — gain access to the properties in the form of tours, events, and summits at each.

“There’s the opportunity to socialize and hang out with all of these other investors and meet at these amazing properties,” Belmont said. “There are a lot of these really world-class class amazing properties around the world that we are able to offer to the masses.”

Bringing life to an abandoned home

Kanye West bought the home in 2021 for $57 million, but never lived in it. It’s one of a few properties West has unloaded recently, like one of his ranches in Wyoming. If all goes according to Belmont’s plan, the Malibu home will see life where it hasn’t in years.

As Belmont sees it, the home has value outside West’s involvement. It’s a uniquely built structure right on the Pacific Ocean that plenty of people will want to visit.

“This is not a regular single-family home — this is not even a regular concrete home — this is something completely different,” Belmont said.

• After my fiancé’s sudden death, I became a single mom of twins overnight.
• Grief transformed my priorities, fueling growth in my career and personal life.
• I’ve also found purpose in reimagining the future for myself and my children.

Most of my weekday mornings follow the same script. I pull into the drop-off line outside of my twins’ elementary school, double-check their backpacks and take a sip of my coffee from my bright pink Yeti cup before it cools. But on a rainy November morning, sitting in the slow-moving line of cars, I found myself deep in thought.

Before the doors opened, my twins, 6, reached for my hand, so we could do our quick handshake, a ritual we created to help them walk into kindergarten with confidence and a way to let them know I will be back to get them. My daughter jumped out of the car, quiet and observant, while my son lingered long enough to look back and say, “Have a great day, Mommy!”

As the teachers waved them toward the entrance, I watched their confidence. And in that moment, it hit me. My children had come a long way in the past two-and-a-half years. I had, too.

Losing my fiancé reshaped me

I became a single mother on April 15, 2023, the day my fiancé, the father of my twins, died unexpectedly from complications related to diabetes. He was only 31.

Our twins were just 3 when they stood in front of their daddy’s light blue casket. My memories from that period feel fragmented; grief has a way of blurring the days, weeks, and sometimes whole months.

However, I learned very quickly that grief doesn’t stop life from moving forward.

In the year that followed, I underwent a significant transformation. Loss clarified my priorities. It forced me to look directly at the future I needed to build. Not later, but now.

As my business grew, so did my commitment to the work

My freelance writing business — something I had nurtured for over 10 years — began to grow. I wrote late into the night after my twins fell asleep, telling stories about Detroit’s resilience, the complexity of motherhood, and the intimate corners of grief for a variety of outlets.

Those nights of “burning the midnight oil,” became reminders that forward motion was still possible.

That clarity carried me into March 2024, where I began a new career on public relations team at a university, a team I had collaborated with a couple years prior for freelance assignments. It was an alignment. I was stepping into PR with the storytelling foundation I’d been building in journalism behind the scenes for years.

Two months later, while settling into that new role, I received a Society of Professional Journalists award for a feature I wrote while planning my fiancé’s funeral. That recognition wasn’t about timing. It was validation for me. Proof that my voice still held power, even during some of the hardest days of my life.

Creating a scholarship in my fiancé’s honor helped me rebuild with purpose

In the spring of 2024, a year after his passing, I established a scholarship in my fiancé’s honor at our alma mater, awarded annually to a graduating senior heading to college.

The scholarship wasn’t about memoralizing grief, it was about ensuring his name stood for something bigger than loss. Creating it gave me a purpose at a time when everything else felt unsteady, allowing me to turn our pain to a path forward for someone else.

A new beginning — for all of us — came about

Then came another milestone, one that made his absence feel sharper than before.

This fall, on my twins’ first day of kindergarten, I stood among parents taking photos as my children explored their classroom, checking cubbies and searching for new friends outside of each other. While they were beginning school, I was beginning something new, too. I had my first day of graduate school.

People often ask me, “How do you balance everything — single motherhood, graduate school, a new career, freelancing, grief?”

But balance isn’t what carried us. Ambition did. Rebuilding did. And many nights of silent prayers.

Today, as I prepare for my final exams and wrap up my assignments for 2025, my twins are settling deeper into their school year — bringing home art projects, forming friendships, and rediscovering joy. They are healing. And so am I.

Grief rewired by ambition. My children shaped it. And the life we are building now is not built on balance, but on steady, intentional work of becoming.

• The author found that displaying family photos creates a sense of warmth and boosts mood at home.
• Growing up without family photos inspired her to fill her adult home with cherished memories.
• Displaying photographs has become a meaningful and affordable way to foster connection and happiness.

I grew up with my father, who never had photos developed and framed. When I spent time at friends’ houses, I envied the warmth that family photos brought to their homes. Very early on, I knew I wanted my adult home to be more like that.

I saw the value in displaying photographs of loved ones and happy memories, and I craved it. By middle school, I started buying disposable cameras with my babysitting money and taking pictures when I hung out with friends.

I noticed the positive effect that photos had on my mood very quickly

I didn’t have my own adult home yet, but I put pictures of my friends and me along the border of my bedroom mirror and regularly switched out my favorite photos in my school binder cover. I was searching for ways to create my own little spaces in the world, filled with memories that made me feel better. No matter what kind of mood I was in, whenever I saw those pictures, I felt loved.

By the time I was in high school and college, I was the one making copies of photos for friends. I noticed how exuberant my best friends would become when I gave them a photo of us being silly or just having a good time together. Before digital cameras and smartphones, looking at new pictures that had just been developed was really exciting for us.

Photographs allowed me to make a home on a small budget

When I had my son in my 20s, I knew I wanted to create a warm home, filled with photographs for him to see everywhere. As a single parent, photographs have been an inexpensive yet extremely effective way to make our home feel like a home. He has always loved it when I get new pictures to put up on the fridge or have framed.

It makes me really happy that I did this one simple thing differently from my dad, because I’ve seen it make an impact on my son’s life. I can see his face light up when he looks at certain pictures that are displayed, even ones that have been on the wall his entire life.

At 12, he’s now decorating his room in the same way I once did, pinning pictures of his friends up on the corkboards in his bedroom.

Pictures of my family help me always see what matters

Now that I’ve remarried, there are a lot of pictures of us together as a family or of just my husband and me.

It’s really hard to stay mad at my husband when I walk past a picture of us on our honeymoon, and it’s even more difficult to be upset with my son when I see a picture of him as a baby. It helps me see him as that baby again, who needs just as much love and support from me now as he did then. And when I see my husband and me so happy and in love, it makes me want to hang on to that and not take it for granted.

These pictures of different times in our lives don’t just make us happier, but they are powerful reminders of what’s most important. There’s a part of me that’s sad for not having experienced that when I was growing up, but I’m also relieved that I learned how to do it for myself and my family as an adult. My son loves photos just as much as I do, and so I know he’ll grow up to display them in his own spaces. It’s such a simple yet important thing he’s going to be able to do for himself and his loved ones, and that makes me really happy.

• Business Insider spoke with three perfume experts about the best fragrances to wear for winter.
• Gourmand scents are still popular, and heady, musky fragrances are great for cold weather.
• Perfumers also recommend leaning into brooding, dramatic, dark-academia vibes this winter.

When the chill sets in and you find yourself swapping lightweight sweaters and trench coats for bulky jackets, don’t forget to give your fragrance shelf a seasonal refresh, too.

Winter fragrances often lean richer, warmer, and more enveloping — think amber, spice, woods, and heady florals that wrap around you like a cozy, knitted blanket.

Business Insider spoke with three perfumers about which scents they love for winter and why. From narcotic florals to warm ambers, here’s what they said about their seasonal favorites.

Warm yourself up with amber.

Amber fragrances provide some coziness in cold weather.

Dana Schmitt, New York City-based perfumer at the fragrance company Givaudan, said that one of her longtime favorites is Chanel Coromandel, a soft yet luxurious scent. It’s a plush, amber perfume anchored by patchouli and frankincense.

Another staple she recommends is REPLICA’s Jazz Club, a classic scent built on rich, spicy, and woody notes.

It evokes the feeling of settling into a dim jazz lounge on a chilly winter night in the city — making it perfect for a romantic date night.

Just like in the fall, gourmand scents continue to stay popular.

Gourmands — including vanilla, caramel, and honey — are just so cozy for winter, bringing warmth and comfort when the temperatures drop.

Bryson Ammons, New York City-based perfumer and founder of The Alloy Studio, likes to push the category a bit further by incorporating a bit of spice.

He really enjoys Amphora Parfum Honeycakes, a sweet yet savory scent that feels both nostalgic and surprising. “It’s like a spiced coffee — a very sticky, syrupy fragrance,” he said.

For something more amber-forward but still gourmand, Schmitt points to Mugler Angel Eau de Parfum, a sweet, praline scent that also features signature notes of patchouli and bergamot.

Narcotic, headier scents are the way to go.

Winters can be cold. When it’s under 30 degrees, New York City-based independent perfumer Asia Grant likes leaning into narcotic, smooth fragrances that feel like wrapping yourself in cashmere and tucking into a dim, cozy library.

Rich musks and heady florals really come alive in cold weather, and also add a brooding, dark-academia vibe that pairs well with chunky sweaters and penny loafers.

Grant recommends Dominique Ropion’s Carnal Flower, an intoxicating, full-bodied fragrance that features notes of melon, tuberose, and white musk.

Because it’s so highly concentrated, she often likes layering it with lighter, fresher scents to balance it out.

Brighten up the chilly weather with citrusy scents.

Lemons, oranges, limes, and grapefruits might make you think “summer,” but they’re technically winter-blooming fruits, which makes them a natural fit for cold-weather fragrances, said Ammons.

They also add a bit of brightness and zing to the chillier months.

Bring the outdoors in with a fresh, woodsier scent.

Although spicy and ambery scents are a given for winter, Ammons likes to shake things up with fresh, woodsy one. Think: light florals, clean laundry, freshly-fallen snow, and a wisp of smoke.

One of his go-tos is Aesop’s Rozu Eau De Parfum, which pairs notes of rose and bergamot with sandalwood and musk.

“There’s something clean and kind of chic about it,” Ammons said.