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0:00Have you ever surprised somebody so much that they
were taken aback, and speechless, and they didn't
0:06know how to react? Well, that's what happened
to me recently when I surprised my parents at
0:11Christmas, and in this episode I'm going to tell
you that story. My name is Andrew and I help you
0:17improve your English fluency through real-life
stories and lessons. To accompany this episode,
0:23there is a 100% free interactive transcript
and vocabulary glossary. You can get it just
0:29by following the link in the description. And if
you're a Culips member, then you'll also get a
0:34comprehension quiz, ad-free audio, and all of
our learning materials and resources that are
0:41designed to help you improve your English fluency
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0:47to sign up and become a Culips member, and you can
do that just by visiting our website Culips.com.
0:53So, in this episode, I'm gonna tell you the
story about going back to my hometown, Kelowna,
0:57to spend some good old family time with my
folks and my brother and sister over Christmas.
1:00We'll get started with that story right after
this break.
1:15I arrived in Kelowna on Christmas Eve morning.
My brother was kind enough to come and pick me
1:21up at the airport, and after he picked me up, we
went to a local restaurant to grab some breakfast
1:27together. It was really nice just to catch up over
some eggs Bennys. Eggs Benedict, do you know what
1:34this breakfast dish is? It's just an egg dish. I
think it's usually served on an English muffin,
1:41which is a kind of bread. And on each half of the
English muffin there is some ham or some bacon,
1:49and then there's a poached egg put on top. And
it's usually served with Hollandaise sauce, which
1:55is this kind of creamy, tangy sauce. Anyways, it's
a pretty good breakfast dish. It's really popular
2:01in Canada, and so I ordered an eggs Benny because
I don't think I've ever seen it on the menu at
2:08a place here in Seoul. So, it's not too popular
where I'm based right now, but in Canada, they're
2:14pretty popular. So, I ordered an egg Benny, my
brother ordered an egg Benny, and we just spent
2:19the morning catching up and chatting and planning
for how we were going to reveal the surprise to
2:27my parents. Because they didn't know that I was
in Canada. They didn't know that I was going to
2:33surprise them for Christmas. Now my brother and my
sister, they were in the know. They knew what was
2:39happening, but my parents didn't know at all. So,
to set up the surprise, my brother had invited my
2:47parents over to his place for a Christmas Eve
dinner. And as we were eating our breakfast,
2:53we chatted and plotted about how I would make the
big reveal and surprise them for Christmas Eve.
3:02Chapter 2: The Big Reveal So, at around 5 p.m., my
parents were scheduled to arrive at my brother's
3:13place for his Christmas Eve party, and my little
sister would also be tagging along and joining. Of
3:20course, as I mentioned, she was in the know. She
knew that I was already in Canada, in town, at my
3:25brother's apartment, but my parents had absolutely
no idea. My brother was the host of the party, so
3:33that means that he had to cook, and so he provided
some food for us. He cooked some pizzas and some
3:40egg rolls, kind of an interesting combination of
food. But hey, it was delicious, and I appreciated
3:47the gesture of being the host and setting
up the surprise for me. And then my parents
3:54finally did arrive at my brother's place, and
they texted and they said, "Hey, we're outside,
4:00can you come and let us in?" They had texted my
brother and asked him to go to the front door and
4:06let them into the apartment building where he
lives. So, my brother went and did that, and I
4:12followed him. I went along with him to the front
door, and it was a little bit awkward because
4:18there were some other people who were coming in
and out of the apartment at the same time. So,
4:25I couldn't really find, like, a good angle to hide
or to do anything like that. And yeah, in fact, I
4:32wasn't sure if I should hide and make it, like, a
big surprise, like pop out of somewhere and shock
4:37them that way. But my parents are in their 70s
right now and yeah, I don't know if it's good to
4:44give them a big shock like that. So I decided I'm
not gonna do that, and because of the other people
4:49coming and going in and out of the building, I
wasn't able to do that. But I just went to the
4:55front door, and I opened the front door with them,
and both my mom and dad were in total disbelief.
5:01Like, my mom, the look on her face and the sound
of her voice, was just total, total shock and
5:09surprise. And my dad, on the other hand, didn't
really say very much. He was kind of just like...
5:16I think maybe he thought something bad happened,
like he was just totally clueless about why I
5:23would have been in Canada, and just totally taken
aback. And to be taken aback means to be really,
5:30really surprised and shocked about something.
So my dad had this kind of look of concern,
5:36like "Did something bad happen? Why are you here?"
He was taken aback. My mom, on the other hand,
5:41was just shocked, and she got so surprised that
she actually had to sit on a bench in the lobby
5:49of the apartment building. So, the surprise
was a success. They were very surprised. They
5:55had no idea at all that I was returning home for
Christmas. But after I surprised them, I wondered,
6:03is this the best way to do things? Like, maybe
I shouldn't have done this. I felt a little bit
6:08guilty because they were so surprised, so
surprised. And eventually, in a good way,
6:15once I calmed them down and I was like, "Yeah,
I'm just here to celebrate Christmas. It's been a
6:20really long time since I've been back, and I had
some time in my schedule, so I just popped back
6:24to Canada, wanted to spend a family Christmas."
After, I think my sister did the calculation and
6:31it was over 12 years since we had been together
for Christmas, all of my family with my brother
6:37and my sister and my folks. So, once I had calmed
them down, then they really appreciated that I
6:44came back, and they enjoyed the surprise. But
initially, I was worried. Like maybe she was going
6:49to have a heart attack or something like that,
because she looked so shocked and surprised. In
6:55hindsight, I think maybe that wasn't the best way
to do the surprise. If I could do it over again,
7:02I would change some things. I would probably just
send them a text message in advance and tell them
7:08I was at my brother's place. Maybe that would have
been a kinder, gentler way to do the surprise.
7:13But as I mentioned, once they calmed down and
settled down, then it was just great to have a
7:19nice family dinner together at my brother's
place to celebrate Christmas Eve. Chapter 3:
7:30Christmas Day So the big reveal was a massive
success, and after our Christmas Eve party,
7:39I went back to my parents' house with my sister.
And I decided to spend the night at my parents'
7:46house so I could wake up early and spend Christmas
morning with them. My brother usually likes
7:51sleeping in on Christmas Day, so he's not like a
Christmas morning type of guy. He'll join us for
7:57the evening for Christmas dinner, but Christmas
morning he likes to just relax and sleep in. So,
8:03because of that, I decided to go back with
my parents to their place and spend the night
8:07there. Now, my parents are empty nesters, and
if you listened to a recent Culips episode,
8:14a Chatterbox episode that I recorded with Anna, we
actually talked about this term "empty nesters."
8:21Do you remember what it means, or do you know what
it means? An empty nester is just a parent whose
8:27child has left the family home. So my parents are
empty nesters because I have moved out, my brother
8:34has moved out, my little sister has moved out.
And after we all moved out, they downsized from
8:40a home to a one-bedroom apartment because they
don't need, like, a big home anymore. They're
8:46empty nesters. They don't need all that space, so
they just live in a one-bedroom apartment, which
8:52means that it's a little bit uncomfortable when
the whole family gathers in their place. I mean,
8:57it's fine for a dinner, but when you're staying
overnight, then it's a little bit uncomfortable.
9:04So of course, my parents had no idea I was coming,
even so, they weren't prepared for me at all. But
9:10my mom put together a makeshift bed for me, and
she wanted me to sleep on the sofa, but I think
9:16I've lived in Korea for too long because now I
actually prefer to sleep on the floor. And this
9:21is a traditional Korean way of sleeping, just
sleeping on the floor. So I told my mom, "No,
9:27no, no, I'm not gonna sleep on the sofa. I'm going
to sleep on the floor." So I set my bed up on the
9:32floor in the living room area, and my sister was
sleeping on a cot in the kitchen. Then my parents
9:40were in their room, of course, but it was alright.
It was just for the night. We woke up, we had a
9:45lovely Christmas morning just exchanging gifts
and drinking coffee, and my mom made a delicious
9:51Christmas breakfast as well. We had some pancakes
and some bacon and eggs and hash brown potatoes,
9:59lots and lots of coffee. I think I drank too much
coffee on Christmas. It's like a long day! You're
10:05just hanging out. There's nothing really to do.
All of the shops are closed. There's nowhere to
10:10go. There's nothing on TV to watch, so you do just
spend a lot of time hanging out with your family,
10:17sitting on the sofa in your PJs, and drinking
coffee. And I was chaining coffee. And “chaining”
10:24is, like, an expression that comes from
smoking, to chain-smoke, and that's where you
10:29have one cigarette after another cigarette after
another cigarette. I don't recommend doing that,
10:34and I also don't recommend chain-drinking coffee,
but that's what I was doing. So I had a lot of
10:39coffee. I was caffeined up, and I spent a nice
afternoon and morning with my folks and sister.
10:46And then later in the evening, my brother came
over. Plus we had two additional dinner guests,
10:52which was something I wasn't expecting at all,
but in the end it turned out to be really fun.
11:00Chapter 4: Meeting New and Old Faces The two
additional guests to our Christmas dinner
11:13celebration were my brother's new girlfriend and
my mom's friend's son. So the new face was my
11:24brother's new girlfriend. Well, actually they've
been dating, I think, for over a year now, but
11:29this was the first time that he introduced her to
the whole family. I had actually met my brother's
11:35girlfriend when I was back in Canada last time
in the summer. We hung out and went to the beach
11:40together, and she's a really lovely person, and I
enjoyed meeting her. But you know, when you're in
11:45the early stages of a new relationship, I think
at that time they had probably only been seeing
11:51each other for like nine months or ten months or
something. So, it's a little bit awkward and you
11:56don't want to jump the gun or do something too
quickly and introduce this new person in your
12:02life to your whole extended family right away. I
mean, it's case by case. Sometimes you might want
12:07to do that. Who knows, everybody's different, but
I think my brother plays things pretty cautiously,
12:13and so he wanted to make sure everything was
good in the relationship before introducing
12:19his girlfriend to the entire family. But finally
it was time for him to do that, so he brought his
12:25girlfriend to the dinner party. But also, my mom
invited a special guest, and that was her friend's
12:33son. OK, my mom's friend's son. And he's the same
age as I am. We actually grew up together, like my
12:41mom and her friend were very close when they were
younger, and I guess they still are really close,
12:47but they live in different places now. Whereas
back when I was a child, we used to live in the
12:52same area. And so, that son is the same age
as me, and he had recently moved to Kelowna,
13:00but I think because he's new in the city, maybe
he doesn't really know too many people yet or
13:04something like that. Anyways, I'm not sure,
but my mom had invited him to Christmas dinner
13:11before she knew that I was coming. She was like,
"Oh, I didn't know that you were coming, Andrew,
13:17so I invited my friend's son.” Let's just call
him Corey, OK? I'll give him this nickname, Corey.
13:24“So, I invited Corey, and if I had known you
were coming, I wouldn't have invited Corey, but
13:29I didn't know." And so anyways, I was like,
"Ah, it's fine.” The more the merrier is
13:34an expression that we use in English in this
situation. It just means that if you have more
13:39guests and more people at an event, then it's
more fun. The more the merrier. And honestly,
13:45I thought maybe it would be a good thing to kind
of break the ice with my brother's new girlfriend,
13:50because you never know how things are gonna
go, right? It could be a little awkward,
13:54this situation, introducing a new significant
other to your family could be a little awkward,
14:00so I was like, maybe Corey could break the
ice and make things smoother. And of course,
14:05to break the ice just means to break the icy
tension or the awkwardness that sometimes comes
14:11with new situations. And, this is exactly
what happened. It was so great. Of course,
14:17my brother's girlfriend is great, and there was
no awkwardness or anything at all. There was no
14:22ice to be broken, and actually Corey turned out to
be a really charismatic, friendly, outgoing guy,
14:29and I really enjoyed having him at the dinner
party. We used to hang out when we were like,
14:34I don't know, from elementary school probably
until we were 12 or 13. And then they moved away
14:40and we sort of lost touch and didn't really keep
in touch through our high school years and beyond.
14:47So we were joking like we hadn't seen each other
for probably close to 30 years. So that was wild
14:54to reconnect, and the first thing that he said to
me is like, "You look exactly the same," and I was
14:59like, "You too, you look exactly the same." And
so it was fun just to hang out with him. We had
15:04a lovely dinner. My mom was busy in the kitchen
all day. She cooked a turkey, she cooked a ham,
15:10we had yams and turnips and potatoes and pickles.
For whatever reason, my parents always serve
15:18pickles at Christmas dinner. I love it. I think
that'll be my tradition going forward too, is
15:25serving pickles. We also had a little bit of wine,
and we just had a nice festive dinner to celebrate
15:32Christmas. Chapter 5: Low-Key Days in Kelowna The
remaining four days that I spent in Kelowna after
15:45Christmas were really low-key and just relaxed. I
didn't get up to too much. The weather was nasty,
15:52and probably when you imagine Canada in the
winter, you're probably thinking lots of snow
15:59and wind and blizzards, this kind of thing, low
temperatures, right? But no, it wasn't like this
16:05at all. My hometown in the winter doesn't get too
cold, and in fact, it was really warm. It was like
16:11three or four degrees, which is pretty warm for
a Canadian winter. So we didn't have any snow. It
16:17was a green Christmas, but it was overcast, it was
rainy, it was windy, and that damp, wet cold...
16:26My hometown's in a valley as well, and the valley
gets really clogged up with rain clouds, and it's
16:34overcast and foggy and just gray and gross. Plus
it's in the winter, so the days are quite short
16:40and the sun sets around 4:30 in the afternoon,
so it was just not too pleasant. And originally,
16:48when I was thinking about going back to Canada, I
thought, I'm gonna do some snowshoeing, I'm gonna
16:52do some hiking, I'm gonna do some running, maybe
even go snowboarding. But I was just uninspired
17:00once I had arrived there, because the weather
was so bad. So instead of that, I think I did
17:05go running once. There was one afternoon where
the sun peeked out for a little bit, and I took
17:10advantage of that to go for a run, actually closer
to where my parents live. But the other times, I
17:17was just hanging out with my brother. Thankfully,
he had some time off work as well, so we could
17:22just chill and hang out together at his place. And
we spent a lot of time just watching TV, hanging
17:29out and watching TV. And actually, when I say TV,
he doesn't even have cable TV at his place, but he
17:35does have a very, very big TV, which is amazing.
It looks great, it’s a very high-quality screen,
17:43and it's connected to YouTube and connected to
Netflix, so we spent some time watching YouTube
17:48and Netflix. Specifically, my brother has really
gotten into chess over the last year or two. And
17:55if you're a longtime Culips listener, you'll also
know that I really like chess, although I have
18:00to admit that I haven't really been playing
too much chess lately. But it was so fun to
18:05watch some chess videos on YouTube. You can watch
these really high-level players play their games,
18:11and as they're playing, they explain the logic of
why they're moving their pieces the way they do,
18:17and their strategy and their thinking, so it
can be really educational as well. And after
18:22we'd watch a couple of games, then we'd get fired
up and we'd go online and play some chess against
18:28each other and against other people. So that was
a really fun way to spend some time together when
18:34the weather was nasty. Then we also, my brother
got me onto this YouTube channel about this guy
18:40from Alaska who has this really elaborate pickup
truck. And in the back of the pickup truck he's
18:47built his own custom home, like a little cabin
that sits in the back of his pickup truck. He
18:53goes around driving all over North America in this
pickup truck with his custom home in the back and
19:00documents his travels and his journeys. And so, I
kind of got obsessed with that channel and watched
19:06a lot of these mini documentaries that he makes
about traveling in his pickup truck all across
19:12Canada and the USA. So, that was cool. Then we
also binge-watched Squid Game. If you haven't seen
19:19Squid Game before, I'd highly recommend it. In
my opinion, it's one of the better Korean dramas
19:24out there. And yeah, season two was released
recently, and so we spent some time watching Squid
19:31Game together. And I thought that was pretty cool
because, of course, my home base is here in Seoul,
19:36South Korea, and I've lived here for a long time
and am familiar with the culture. So it was cool
19:41to watch Squid Game with my brother and to chime
in from time to time with some little background
19:47nuggets and tidbits of information that I know
about from living in Korea. So that was my time
19:56back in Canada. In the end, it was a great
success. It was wonderful to see my family,
20:01and of course, they were very happy to see me
as well, especially my parents, who I really,
20:07really surprised. And in retrospect, I think next
time, if I ever do something like this again,
20:13I'm gonna need to give them a little bit of a
heads up. I don't know, what do you think? If
20:18you were in my boots, if you were in my situation,
what would you have done? If you were going to do
20:23a surprise like this to one of your family members
or your friend or a loved one, how would you go
20:29about doing it? Would you just do the same style
that I did, like a complete shock and surprise? Or
20:35would you give some advanced warning? Let me know.
Share a comment with me on our Discord server or
20:41on the YouTube page or Instagram page, and I'll be
looking forward to hearing what you guys have to
20:47say about your thoughts about surprising people.
And also, I need to share with you the completion
20:53code for this week. So for this week, the
completion code is going to be: Surprise. Maybe
21:00you're not surprised to know that the completion
code is "surprise," but that's what it will be.
21:06You can leave a comment with the word "surprise,"
or an example sentence using the word "surprise,"
21:12on our Discord community, on our YouTube page, on
our Instagram page, and that will signal to me and
21:18signal to our entire community that you studied
all the way to the end of this lesson. And guys,
21:24I really do appreciate that you took some time
out of your busy schedule to study English with
21:29me today. But be assured that the time you spent
here was worthwhile. Every second and minute and
21:36hour that you spend with English will help get
you closer to your fluency goals. Don't forget
21:41that there's a free interactive transcript and
vocabulary glossary for this episode that you can
21:47get just by following the link in the description.
Plus, if you're a Culips member, then you'll also
21:52get ad-free audio and a comprehension quiz, plus
tons of other great learning resources and tools
22:00and materials as well. To sign up and become a
Culips member, just visit our website Culips.com.
22:06So everyone, take care, and I'll talk to you in
the next Culips episode. Until then, goodbye.
