【推荐1】Our old, artificial Christmas tree was in rough shape by the time we retired it. At least a decade had passed since my wife and I bought the tree, a medium-size fake tree with built-in lights, at a Target in Brooklyn and carried it on the subway to our tiny apartment. Over the years, we dragged that tree from apartment, jammed it onto a moving truck to Los Angeles and later packed the weathered box onto another moving truck, this time to Chicago and our current home. By the end, layers of duct tape (强力胶布) held the box together, the wear and tear of a decade of delivering holiday cheer.

Our little tree looked run down, but it was the only tree our family ever knew. It stands proud and glowing in the background of photos of me and my pregnant wife during our last Christmas in Brooklyn without children. Our oldest was born a month later during a January snowstorm. The tree shows up again in the next year’s photos, this time surrounded by holiday gifts for a boy about to turn 1. Then it appears in photos of our son and his 1-month-old brother, this time with California palm trees just outside the door. And in more recent photos, our tree lights up windows overlooking shining Chicago snow. This year, after much debate, we decided to retire our dear old tree, with its bent branches and the lights that had burned out years ago. Rather than feel depressed, we used the moment to launch a new family tradition: our first real Christmas tree.

So here’s a toast to all your family’s traditions—the old and the new. I hope you enjoy this issue, which we have filled with stories of seasonal joy and holiday cheer. Happy holidays!

【推荐2】My 10-year-old son and two friends attended a 2-hour fantastic basketball camp on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. A few minutes before the session ended, there was a shooting contest. Only a few kids were chosen to compete, and my son was not one of them. The contest winners received prizes and recognition, as did a few kids chosen as “all-stars” for effort, skill and participation. Again, my son was not selected.

My son was struggling to deal with his disappointment.

At the camp, he played a basketball game with kids he had never met, guarded them fiercely and took shots easily against them. As his mom, I was thrilled that he spent the day without his iPad. All in all, the day felt wonderful. The last thing I wanted was for these awards to ruin the experience.

I decided to simplify it for him. I did the math and figured out the shooting contest and awards were about 6% of the total camp. The rest of the camp, the parts that he enjoyed, were 94% of the day. Even though the kid loves math, it was hard for him to see the contests and awards as a small part of his day.

My son once told me about a negative situation that played out at recess（课间休息）. The way he explained it felt like the disagreement lasted hours, but it turns out it was only the last few minutes of recess.

Now is the time for me as the parent to help my kids think more positively. If my son leaves a half-day camp and most of the day was great —that’s a win. If our family is able to go to Florida over winter break and enjoy time together, away from the everyday headaches, that’s also a win. We can acknowledge the aspects that disappoint us, as long as we are willing to then focus on the bigger picture.

It starts with me and my husband. Our kids will model the behavior we show. They need to see us thinking positively and not hyper-focusing on the negative 6%.

【推荐1】Jay Hewitt completed the Ironman race in under 14 hours despite having gone through 2 brain surgeries and a year of chemo (化疗). His inspiration? His 7-year-old daughter named Hero. Hewitt, 39, said he first saw an Ironman race on TV in 1989 and recalled thinking to himself “they must be superhuman”. It never crossed his mind that he could do something like that.

After his daughter’s birth in 2015, the memory of seeing that competition popped into his mind. Hewitt decided he would compete in an Ironman when she was around 10 years old to show his daughter she can do anything she sets her mind to. Then in 2018, when Hero was around three years old, Hewitt was diagnosed with terminal (晚期的) brain cancer. So, he had to start training earlier than he had planned.

“My first day of chemo therapy in August 2019 was the first day I started my Ironman training,” Hewitt said. On October 9, Hewitt started in Newport Beach’s Back Bay with a 2-mile swim. During the race, he couldn’t digest (消化) food or water, but pushed through the sickness. The stomach pain was serious. When he came around the corner to the finish line, there were hundreds of people there cheering him on.

Hewitt said seeing his daughter made everything worth it. I didn’t have much energy, but I gave my wife a kiss, handed my wife and daughter flowers and got down on my knees to say to Hero. “If I can do it, you can do it. Dream big and never give up hope.” “I got to tell her that it was really hard for me but I had thought about coming home to her, and that she had given me the strength to finish.”

【推荐3】17-year-old Tibetan girl Cigla is a freshman at Nagqu No.2 Senior High School in Lhasa, which sits 3,650 meters above sea level. She now plays point guard for the school’s 12-member female basketball team.

“Practice makes perfect. You get used to the elevation (海拔) when you love the sport and train hard enough,” said the potential basketball star, who has been passionate about the sport since taking it up three years ago.

Cigla wears wristbands when playing her favorite sport. With her outstanding speed, agility (灵活) and accurate passes, she never fails to shine on the basketball court, even when she competes against the boys. Though she is a freshman in high school, Cigla already has a clear picture of her future-entering a sports college to study basketball. In the eyes of Cigla, who comes from a poor herder’s family in northern Tibet’s Nagqu City, studying in Lhasa, the region’s most developed city, has made it much easier for her to realize her basketball dream.

With an average altitude of over 4,500 meters, Nagqu is among the most uninhabitable places in Tibet, known as the “roof of the world”. Low-oxygen environments and extreme weather have long influenced the health of Nagqu students, hampering the development of primary education in the area.

Like Cigla, many students at the school are from poor farmers’ and herders’ families. Dawa Droma, a senior student also on the school’s female basketball team, said her passion (热爱) for the sport started from her first basketball game in her freshman year.

“I had never touched a basketball before that game but joined the class team anyway. When I scored and heard my classmates cheer for me, I couldn’t feel more proud. That’s how I fell in love with basketball and never looked back,” she recalled. Reflecting on the influence of basketball on her life, Dawa Droma said the sport has helped her get fit and build up confidence over the years. “Meeting players from different schools has certainly made me a more outgoing person,” she said.