10 Essential and Funny Topics to Discuss at Christmas

Christmas is all about sharing and giving. When residing in student accommodation, whether in Australia or in the UK, you will be sharing the Christmas season with your student house flatmates. Living with like-minded students is even funnier and cooler when they come from different backgrounds and have different cultures. Although this might make it a bit difficult to have a common ground, it surely widens your life perspective. Gatherings are all about sharing funny stories and discussing profound topics that make the listener get an insight into your character and past personal experiences. What is more here is that we get to know more about other cultures, traditions and countries. Here we're providing you with a list of topics that could be fun to discuss with your roommates:

1. Learning New Skills

Write the new skills that you have acquired throughout the year and how hard/easy it was to do so. Stating how you have learned each to determine the most effective method of learning that works best for you. Ask your friends about their preferred studying methods. Compare the skills you have acquired to that of your flatmates and friends; they might come up with a skill that you would like to work on in the next year. You can also exchange learning resources so that you can all benefit and to make it even funnier, you can pick the culinary expert among you to schedule cooking classes for everyone!

2. Best Read Books

List the great books that you have finished. How many were related to your studies, how many were related to self-development, and how many were fiction? Decide if these numbers are satisfactory and increase them in the upcoming year if they are not. Exchange books and novels with your friends and classmates. It is a good way of finding interesting topics to talk about. If you have a Christmas book in mind, share it with your flatmates too. If your mates are bookworms, you can initiate creating a book club with various genres; this gives you all room to discuss books with one another and will surely solidify your bonds.

3. Your Favourite Christmas Movies

Each country has a set of movies that they watch depending on the season, and Christmas movies sit at the very top. Exchange the most famous Christmas movies in your hometown with your flatmates. Tell each other the core of each movie and discuss how each idea is rooted in the culture of its country of origin. Watch them together too if you have the time. It is fun!

4. Last Year's Christmas Gifts and Activities

Tell your flatmates about the weirdest and funniest Christmas gifts that you have received. We all had this aunt or uncle who gave us the funniest gifts. Exchange some funny Christmas stories. Family gatherings are always full of funny and unexpected stories that you later share with a good laugh. You can try making a wish list for this Christmas or try playing Secret Santa with your flatmates. Some people have traditional Christmas gifts that they exchange annually, so go figure!

5. Christmas Holiday Memories

As a child, you have definitely made some great memories at Christmas. Share with your flatmates some funny stories and unforgettable memories about Christmas. This is a great way to bond with them. In each and every country, there are specific places to visit at Christmas. Familiarise them with the landmarks that people usually visit in the New Year in your home country. Some Christmases are even marked by a particular event that you cannot help but link them together. How can you ever forget this Christmas with that huge fight between you and your sibling that ended up with both of you laughing at how absurd it was? 

6. Favourite Christmas Song

Everyone has a different taste in music. Tell your flatmates about your favourite Christmas song. If it is not in English, translate it to them and they can interpret theirs to you too. Make a playlist in which everyone chooses a song to be played, play it and listen to them together and decide on a common favourite. 

7. New Friends

Tell one another about the new acquaintances that you have made and how do you see your friendships in 5-10 years. Is it easy to build strong and new friendships or do you find it a bit difficult? Share funny stories about how you and your best friends became that close. Let the 'there is no love except after enmity' saying come to live!

8. Newly Visited Places & History

Tell them about the new places that you have visited last year at Christmas. You can also watch the dropping ball from New York's Times Square on TV, London Big Ben's fireworks, Burj Khalifa in Dubai, or The Opera House ones in Sydney. Share together which one each would like to visit the most. Your hometown is a touristic destination to your flatmates. Show them pictures of your hometown and the spectacular places that tourists come from all over the globe to visit! You can also share some historical stories and ancient tales about your ancestors. Each and every country has some fun facts that no other country gets, share with your flatmates a weird fact about your country and let them share theirs in return. Read together our 11 Things Foreigners in Australia Find Weird blog post and you will realize how funny it is to share weird facts!

9. Take Pictures 

Cherish the gathering and take some pictures of it all! the Christmas decorations, snacks, food, drinks, and outfits. Group pictures are an amazing way of remembering how it felt like to be there in the moment. Print the best version of the pictures you'll be taking and hang it in the communal area where you all can see it.

10. New Year’s Resolutions

Talk about your old New Year’s resolutions; the ones you have done and the ones you haven’t done yet. You can collaborate to write a common list of resolutions for all of you. Use the previous topics to create an amazing list including the new skills you want to acquire, new places you want to visit, new/old movies you want to watch and new books you want to read. Having a list will make all the pieces come together and executing the plan is easier this way.