【推荐1】What is a family? Why does it_________? These questions seem_________important in the_______ season when it is often our tradition to celebrate together.

My mother was one of twelve_______. As they grew up, married and had kids of their own, most of them lived_______ enough in a small town in the mountains of North Carolina so that they didn’t need to travel a long way to see each other in the holidays.

I can’t recall getting many gifts from them._______, I remember the sense of being part of something that told me I was loved. The time we spent together was always filled with happiness.

I_______the laughing, playing and fighting with my crazy cousins.

I watched my granddad and uncles sit_______the door arguing about politics and trying to _______the problems of the world as if they were working in the White House. I listened to my grandmother, mother and aunts chat about their lives, hopes and dreams and gossip about any sister who failed to________so that we wouldn’t forget about them in their absence.

The food was always plentiful and delicious. But for me, the food was ________the highlight (亮点). The highlight was________being together.

However, they're all gone now. My parents and grandparents, my aunts and uncles have________ this world. My cousins are scattered (分散) here and there. And yet the memories________, along with the love that we shared.

I________ those memories as well as the things they taught me. They told me that families aren't________, but they prepare us to find our way in this imperfect world.

My husband and I are growing a________ family, while keeping close to our old families. Our life is a beautiful________ of kindness, traditions, nurturing and friendships, which grows year after year.

I hope this holiday season will fill you with lovely memories of the family that ________you, and surround you with all the people who ________“family” to you now.

【推荐1】Eradajere Oleita now lives in Detroit. She thinks she may have a partial solution for two of the country’s persistent (持续的) problems: garbage and _________ It’s called the Chip Bag Project. The 26-year-old student is asking a favour of local snack _________ Rather than litter your empty chip bags, _________ them so she can turn them into sleeping bags.

Chip-eaters _________ their bags at two locations in Detroit, where Oleita and her _________ collect them. It takes about four hours to _________ a sleeping bag, each taking around 300 chip bags. The _________ is a sleeping bag that is “lightweight and waterproof,” Oleita told the media.

Since its start in 2020, the Chip Bag Project has collected over 800,000 chip bags and, as of last December, _________ 110 sleeping bags.

Sure, it would be _________ to raise the money to buy new sleeping bags. But that’s only half the __________ for Oleita and her fellow volunteers. “We are devoted to making a difference not only socially, but __________” she says.

Of course, there’s the symbolism of recycling bags that would __________ land in the garbage and using them to help the __________ . And it’s surely a(n) __________ that environmental injustice and poverty often go hand in hand. As Oleita told hourdetroit.com: “I think it’s time to __________ connections between all of these issues.”

【推荐2】Emily Bhatnagar lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland. She has always loved _____. As a really shy girl, she always turned to books, which sort of became her best friends when she didn’t have one. In 2019, when her dad was diagnosed with cancer, it was a difficult time for her family and books became an even bigger _____. She started thinking about people in _____ situations.

When her father recovered, she had overwhelming gratitude to the doctors for performing such a miracle, but also a hint of sadness about kids who were fighting the same battle. At that very moment, she came up with a plan. She wanted to do things for the _____.

She started a book drive called For Love & Buttercup in her hometown. The goal was to _____ books and give them to kids being treated for cancer in local hospitals. At first, Emily had no idea how much _____ her work would get. She started by posting on social media, asking people in her area to _____. She was expecting maybe two or three _____ from neighbors, but it ended up blowing up, _____ when news stations began reporting it. Since the start of the book drive, Emily has collected more than 10,000 books.

Now Emily continues to run the book drive. She hopes to ______ the project one day to reach more kids. The memory of the first time she visited children who’d received her books sticks with her. “It was the best day of my life,” she says. “I realized I wanted to do this type of work forever.”

【推荐1】A Person Who Has Influenced My Life

There is always a time in one’s life when a hero comes along. Someone who has inspired you can really help you learn what life is about.

I remember it as if it was yesterday. I was fifteen years old that year. It was around eight o'clock one evening when my mother ________ a phone call from her brother-in-law, who told us my aunt was in hospital and that the doctor ________ them she would need an operation immediately. My family became very worried about my aunt’s situation.

While my aunt was in the hospital with special care, my cousin Mark, who is mentally disabled, spent time with my family. Mark was seventeen at the time, and had been born with severe mental disorders, which created a wide range of social and physical problems for him throughout everyday life. He never had any true friend________ no one could relate to him. I must admit that at the beginning I was filled with uncertainty as to how much of a________ my cousin would bring on my family. Now looking back it saddens me to see the ________ I once showed.

Over the two weeks when Mark lived with my family, I probably understood more about life and its meanings. Mark was seventeen, but learned on a nine-year-old level. Although his learning ability was slower than most, he could still learn. He explored ________ to do most of the things everyone else did. ________ he did pretty well and succeeded at almost everything he tried to do. He ________ his illness and showed an ambition to love life. To him, having a successful life means achieving goals on his own terms and at his own ________.

Mark is my hero, for his disability has forever changed my viewpoint on life. It seems like a well-deserved life when you’re fifteen, and it is amazing how in a period of time your point of view can change so ________.

【推荐2】It seems like just yesterday that I was driving my mom to the hairdresser’s or out to go shopping. She would always sit in the passenger seat, examining her bag ________. For a long time, my mom carried a newspaper. The ________ was about a boy going to school. She always told me how she had gone to school with him, but I had no ________ of knowing for sure. My mom had Alzheimer’s disease.

Something about this story ________ in her mind, so she put the newspaper in her bag. She frequently ________ the things in her bag to make sure it was still inside. She also looked for her ________ , because my dad probably ________ her to make sure she could answer it.

It made me ________ . I shouted at her and told her the more she ________ it and took everything out, the more likely she would be to ________ something. But none of that ________ . She always had her ________

Finally, she stopped worrying about the bag ________ . She put it down one day and never picked it up again. And she never woke up again. I found her bag lying on the kitchen table one day and it ________ me. I never thought I would be so sad to ________ this bag. It caused me so much ________ for so long, but there I was, crying at the sight of it.

This bag symbolizes a time when my mom was able to get into the ________ and go out with me. I wish I could go back in time to a day when my mom ________ the old bag in her arms. Whatever you are going through right now and whatever your ________ is, you are going to ________ the thing that drives you mad someday.

【推荐3】The e-mail request came into the Ekiben restaurant in Baltimore late on a Thursday afternoon: their special broccoli dish. The man who sent the e-mail didn’t actually ______ the food itself. He explained that he was writing on behalf of his ______ in Vermont, who was in the final stages of lung cancer, and he was ______ to get the recipe to make it for her there.

Steve Chu, one of the restaurant’s co-owners, read the e-mail and quickly replied with an alternative ______.“We’d like to meet you in Vermont and make it fresh for you,” he wrote.

Brandon Jones, the son-in-law, was ______. For the past six years, every time Brandon’s mother-in-law visited Baltimore, the first place she wanted to go to was Ekiben, where she could ______ that dish.

“She had always told us, ‘When I’m on my deathbed, I want to have that broccoli,’” recalls Brandon’s wife, Rina Jones.

That Friday after work, a day after receiving Brandon’s ______, Chu headed for Vermont with his coworkers. As soon as Chu and his team arrived, they got to ______. They pulled down the gate of the pickup and started ______.

Rina says her mother also ______ Chu and his coworkers. “My mom kept saying, ‘You drove all the way up here to cook for me?’ She was so happy and ______ to have that broccoli. She couldn’t ______ it.”

The Joneses invited Chu and his coworkers to ______ them for dinner, but they needed to get back to Baltimore. Chu also ______ to accept any money from the family.

“It was an honor to help fulfill the family’s ______,” Chu says.