This was my grandmother s first Christmas without Grandfather, and before he passed away we had promised Grandfather that we would make this her best Christmas ever. When my parents and I1at her house, we found she had waited up all night for us. The house did seem a little 2 without Grandfather.

    Grandfather had always said that the Christmas3was the most important decoration of all. So we immediately set to work on the beautiful artificial tree that was stored in Grandfather's closet(壁橱)，Through our efforts, we finally stepped back to4 our handiwork. It looked beautiful.5something was missing.

    "Where's your star?" I asked.

    The star was my grandmother s favorite part of the tree.

    "It 6 be here somewhere," she said, starting to sort through the boxes again." Your grandfather always7 everything so carefully when he took the tree down,"

    As we emptied the boxes and8 no star, my grandmother's eyes filled with tears. Grandfather gave it to Grandmother fifty years ago on their first Christmas together. It brought them great happiness. Now, on her first Christmas without him, the star was9, too.

    "Don't worry, Grandmother," I10 her. "We'll find it for you."

    My mother and 1 formed a search11. "Let's start in the closet where the ornaments (装饰品) were," Mother said. "Maybe the star just fell out of the box".

That sounded12, so I began to search the closet. I thought I tried every13, but no star. I could see Grandmother was 14, although she tried not to show it.

"What's in this wrapped box?" Mother suddenly called out. "It was at the bottom of Father's closet, "Grandmother took the box in 15 and opened it. Her face lit up when she unfolded the paper and pulled out a golden star.

Halloween is a strange holiday. It started several centuries ago in Europe. It began as "Hallow Evening" which (mean) "holy night". At that time November 1st was (call) "All Saints' Day(万圣日)" and people honored all the saints who did not have their own special day. People believed all the spirits of dead people were active the night of October 3lst. So people would play all sorts of tricks on each other.

    Black is one of the (tradition) Halloween colors, probably because Halloween activities and traditions took place at night. Pumpkins are a symbol of Halloween, orange has become the other traditional Halloween color. (make) lanterns out of pumpkins is a Halloween custom. Halloween is great fun for children. They dress up . ghosts and witches(女巫). Small (child) go trick or treating. They wear costumes, knock on doors, and shout "Trick or Treat!". People always choose (give) them candy as a treat. Adults sometimes "trick or treat" their friends, too. Usually the treat" is a glass of wine or some small gifts,

    Tang Jun is chatting with his e friend David on QQ.

(D-David; T-Tang Jun)

D: Hi, how is it ?

T: Pretty good! We our Dragon Boat Festival last week.

D: The Dragon Boat Festival? What do you celebrate it for?

T: To commemorate(纪念) an ancient Chinese poet(诗人).

D: How do you usually celebrate it?

T: We usually eat rice dumplings on that day. But this year, we did something more .

D: What did you do?

T: Our school had a dragon boat race.

D: Sounds interesting! Who the race?

T: Our class.

D: You're great!

T: Thanks a lot. I hope you can come to China some day.

D: I hope so, I'm interested in Chinese . Tell me more about them next time.

T: OK, I will.

He likes to as Santa Claus to give out presents to children,