1 . Different countries celebrate Christmas in different ways. We asked some of our friends to explain what happens in their countries. This is what they told us:

France

In France, Christmas is always called Noël. Everyone has a Christmas tree, sometimes decorated in the old way with red ribbons and real white wax candles. Fir trees in the garden are often decorated too with lights on all night.

Father Christmas is called Père Noël. The Christmas meal is an important family gathering with good meat and the best wine. Few people send Christmas cards. More people send New Year cards to wish everyone good luck and joy for the New Year. These days Christmas lunch is a starter of foie gras (a strong tasting pate made from goose liver) followed by lunch of seafood — usually including lobsters and oysters.

New Zealand

Christmas starts for us with gifts under the tree, to be opened on Christmas morning. Then it’s onto a Christmas lunch either at home or at one’s parents place. Turkey or chicken with all the trimmings (佐料) is eaten. Then comes tea time. It is a BBQ for friends and family to get together, and have a few beers or wines with the meal!

Russia

In the days of the Soviet Union, Christmas was not celebrated very much. New Year was the important time — when “Father Frost” brought presents to children. With the fall of Communism, Christmas can be openly celebrated either on December 25th; or more often on January 7th. This unusual date is because the Russian Orthodox church uses the old “Julian” calendar for religious celebration days. Special Christmas food includes cakes, pies and “meat dumplings”.

Sweden

The most important day is Christmas Eve. A special Christmas meal is eaten on Christmas Eve — ham (pork), herring fish, and brown beans — and this is the time when families give presents to each other. Many people attend a church meeting early on Christmas Day.

5 . Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday. The day after it has been known as Black Friday.     1    and it has been the busiest shopping day of the year in the US since 2005.

 Black Friday is a great time to go shopping.     2     The biggest one is that there are not enough low-priced items. Each store may only have a few. These items are in great need, so people stand in long lines to get them. They may wait three to four hours before a store opens. They may be hoping to get a low price on a TV or computer, but not everybody can get one.     3     

    4     It was first used in Philadelphia in the 1950s. The police called this day Black Friday because of the heavy traffic it caused. In the 1960s, stores tried to rename the day “Big Friday”. It did not stick. The name “Black Friday” continued to spread across the country. It seems that it is here to stay.

 Now people all over the country take part in Black Friday events.     5    Stores have held Black Friday events in the UK, Australia, and Brazil since 2012. In Mexico, stores offer a weekend of discounts every year. They call it “El Buen Fin”, which means “the good weekend” in Spanish. I guess people everywhere like to buy things on sale.

6 . Many people have close relationships with their cousins and form bonds that last a lifetime. National Cousins Day can be a great opportunity to spend time with some of your favorite people in the family.     1    .

What is National Cousins Day?

National Cousins Day is an annual holiday that takes place on July 24. It encourages people to spend time with and appreciate their cousins.     2    , it's easy to lose touch as you grow older. On National Cousins Day, you might reconnect with cousins and look back on happy family memories together. National Cousins Day also serves as a good excuse to hang out and have fun with some of your closest family members.

    3    

The origin of National Cousins Day is a bit of a mystery. It's unclear how and when the holiday officially started. Nevertheless, cousins have been an important part of the American family for generations. In the past, the bonds between cousins were explored in TV shows and movies in a lighthearted and funny way. And now, from family reunions to summer cookouts, cousins are given the chance to bond with one another.

How to Celebrate National Cousins Day

    4    . We've listed a few ways you can enjoy a happy Cousins Day. A good old-fashioned barbecue can bring back memories of the days when you and your cousins were little kids, running around and causing mischief together.     5    . Organize a game of soccer with your cousins to get some fresh air and exercise. This activity works especially well if you have a lot of cousins.

7 . Hotels that go all out for Christmas

In the United States capital, the Willard InterContinental will host free performances through December 23. Holiday afternoon tea — with finger sandwiches and pastries — will be served every Friday, Saturday and Sunday through December 26 ($79 per person or $89 with a glass of champagne).

Room rates in December start around $325.

Guests at Claridge’s will be treated to horse-drawn carriage rides. Three-night Christmas packages feature those festive events, plus Christmas lunch, Champagne, a visit from Father Christmas, stockings for all and a full English breakfast each day. Festive afternoon tea, served through January 3, is about $126 for an adult and $66 for one child.

A two-night holiday season package starts at about $1,425.

The Breakers Palm Beach carries its lavish traditions right through the holiday season. The oceanfront Italian resort dazzles with sparkling lights, and holiday tea is available at HMF on select days in late December for $115 per person. Nearly every room has already been snapped up this December, but holiday tea and meals make for a festive taste of the striking hotel.

Rates start at $599 per night in December.

The Ritz Paris is putting on exactly what you’d expect from the elegant property. The hotel is celebrating a Swiss Christmas this year in homage to founder César Ritz’ roots with a gold and blue theme accented with paper edelweiss flowers. Christmas Tea is available at Bar Vendome and Salon Proust, starting at about $77 per person.

December room rates start at around $1,700 a night.

9 . Relics are artifacts(人工制品) from ancient civilizations such as the Egyptians, Greeks, and Mayans. On many occasions, archaeologists discover relics containing text written in ancient languages. These items could be ancient books and scrolls(卷轴) or they could simply be vases and coins with writing on them. Interpreting these texts can be difficult, particularly if the language is a previously undiscovered one, and the texts may additionally be hard to read if they are incomplete or if sections have worn away. Another complication is that interpreting them must be done without the reader introducing any bias (偏见) based upon modern language and culture.

Lost languages are among the numerous barriers archaeologists must break through to interpret texts on relics. One solution is to employ a key, such as the Rosetta Stone, which was discovered in Egypt in 1799. It contains an ancient Egyptian decree(法令) written in three languages, one of which is in Egyptian hieroglyphics(象形文字), an unknown language at the time of its discovery; however, another language on it is ancient Greek, which scholars understood. By comparing the text, scholars made great leaps(跃进) in interpreting hieroglyphics. Unfortunately, other ancient languages, such as Minoan Linear A, have not been figured out primarily because no key that can assist translation efforts has been discovered yet.

The Rosetta Stone was mostly unscathed, but its missing parts increased the difficulty of interpreting its text, something which frequently happens with relics. The passage of time may result in carvings, paintings, drawings, and textual inscriptions(题字) getting worn away. For example, the Tel Dan Stone, a stone with ancient Hebrew inscriptions that was found in Israel in 1993, is broken in places, and large pieces of text are missing. The result is a long-standing controversy over the precise interpretation of the writing on it.

How modern scholars view texts is another barrier to interpreting them since translators have their own personal biases. Researchers must therefore keep the historical and cultural context of the period when the text was written in mind. This can be difficult when little is known of the people who wrote the text and when or why they wrote it .

10 . On the night of 14th June 1904, New York’s Chinatown was in a deep gloom (低迷). For the past 20 years, the restaurants were filled with those crazy about a taste of real Chinese cooking “chop suey”. But suddenly, all that seemed at risk. A few days earlier, a chef named Lem Sen had arrived, saying he had invented it a decade before while working at a restaurant in San Francisco. His recipe had been stolen by an American diner to make money. Through his lawyer, he demanded restaurants pay him for using his recipe.

Chop suey was first mentioned by Chinese-American journalist Wang Chin Foo in a list of common dishes he thought most attractive to Western tastes. As he explained, “each Chinese cook has his own recipe. The main parts are pork, bacon, chicken, mushroom, bamboo shoots, onion, and pepper, while accidental ones are duck, beef, salted black beans etc. Yet it is often considered by Westerners that this is a ‘national dish of China’ more than any other dish they’ve known.”

Although a hyperbolic way to introduce this dish, it clearly showed that chop suey was indeed of Chinese origin. Where exactly its roots lay has been debated; but it was probably first cooked in Taishan, Guangdong, where most early immigrants to America had grown up. In 1866, the journalist Allan Forman noticed it as a delicious dish despite its “mysterious nature”, and nine years later, the first recipe appeared in magazines, with some un-Chinese ingredients thrown in.

It was not long before a myth making began. In 1896, Li Hongzhang visited New York, and newspapers mistakenly reported that while refusing Western dishes at a banquet (宴会), he had enthusiastically accepted a plate of chop suey. This caused a great hit, and many who never heard of it before simply assumed that it was introduced to the US by Li Hongzhang, which accidentally promoted the dish’s popularity.