It was now December twenty-fourth. So here we were, travelling about 2,000 miles and finally reaching our destination San Diego at last. We’d rented a room in a small, well-worn motel (汽车旅馆) near the beach.
Six-year-old Chat frowned. “There is no Christmas tree, Mommy! But it’s almost Christmas. How can Santa know where to put our presents without a Christmas tree?”
“Yes, a Christmas tree!” echoed (附和) his four-year-old brother Jay. “I want a Christmas tree!”
”Couldn’t we just get a small Christmas tree and set it up in this room somewhere?“ asked Chat. ”That way, Santa Claus will know where to put our presents.”
I sighed, looking around at our squeezed-in beds and bags. “But, honey, the five of us can barely move around in here with all our suitcases and everything. I’m sorry, but we just don’t have the room for something extra like a Christmas tree.”
Our oldest son, seven-year-old Robin, had been listening quietly. Suddenly, he grinned (咧嘴笑). “Yes, we do.”
I stared. “Where?”
He pointed to our motel room’s door. “Right there—on the back of that door. Please, Mommy, if we can’t get a real tree, can’t we make a pretend tree and put it up there? Then Santa will know we love Christmas just as much as he does.”
“And leave us some presents, too!” Chat added.
Make a tree? I looked at the newspaper that I had bought when I was searching for places to rent. If I taped some of those pages together, cut them out into a tree shape, and bought some poster paint and brushes at the store next door…
Now, I was grinning, too. “Okay, boys! Ready to make the very best Christmas tree in the whole wide world?”
“Yes!”
注意:1. 续写词数应为150左右;
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
So we bought some paint and then taped and cut and painted.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________The next morning, I heard, “Mommy! Daddy! Look! Santa did find us after all!”
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________How Do We Celebrate Mother’s Day
It is specially in a big family like ours that such an idea takes hold—we decided to have a special celebration of Mother’s Day. We thought it a fine idea. It made us all realize how much Mother had done for us for years and all the efforts and sacrifice that she had made for our sake.
We decided that we’d make it a great day, a holiday for all the family, and do everything we could to make Mother happy. It was our plan to make it a day just like Christmas, so we decided to decorate the house with flowers and ribbons. We got Mother to arrange the decoration, because she always does it at Christmas.
Well, after breakfast we had it arranged as a surprise for Mother that we would hire a car and take her for a beautiful drive away into the country, which would be a great enjoyment for her. We got everything arranged for the trip, and we got Mother to cut up some sandwiches and make up a sort of lunch in case we got hungry. Mother packed it all up in a basket for us ready to go into the car.
Well, when the car came to the door, it turned out that there hardly seemed as much room in it as we had supposed, because we hadn’t considered Father’s fishing basket and the rods, and it was apparent that we couldn’t all get in. Father that he could just wait at home. But of course we all felt that it would never do it, especially as we knew he would make trouble. The two girls, Anne and Mary, would gladly have stayed and helped Mother get dinner, only it seemed such a pity to, on a lovely day like this, have their new hats home to miss the beautiful day. Will and I would have dropped out, but unfortunately we wouldn’t have been any use in getting the dinner.
So in the end it was decided that Mother would stay home and just have a lovely day round the house, and get the dinner. We all drove away with three cheers for Mother, and Mother stood and watched us from the window for as long as she could see us. Father caught such big fish that he felt sure that Mother couldn’t have landed them anyway, if she had been fishing for them, and Will and I fished too, though we didn’t get so many as Father. We all had a splendid time.
注意：
1.续写词数应为150左右;
2.请按如下格式作答。
It was quite late when we got back, and Mother had dinner just nicely ready for us.
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Mother said it was the most wonderful day in her life, with tears shining in her eyes.
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An Unforgettable Thanksgiving Day
“Mom, is it okay if I invite a few of the classmates for Thanksgiving?” asked my son Evan. Evan had been senior high school students for two years. The school he attends is a challenging school and is strict with students but Evan did well and he had changed a lot. We were very grateful that our son had learned not only to tidy up, but to shine everything. Most importantly, he became more outgoing.
But with all the strict rules and hard work, the students there were also forming lifelong friendships. It was a practice that those unable to go home for the holidays would find a welcoming place at the table in the home of any of their friends. We’d hosted Evan’s roommates last year and looked forward to meeting new guests this Thanksgiving.
“Oh, one thing, Mom,” Evan continued. “These guys are exchange students. They would be Tim from Thailand, Kanok and Patrick from Mexico and Costel from Canada. They couldn’t eat their traditional dishes at school. So you’d better cook some special dishes for them. I know you are good at cuisine（烹饪）. ”
Indeed, I did delicious dishes and I was very excited about the international dishes we’d have at our dinner table. What dishes would I cook for these special visitors? They’d probably love a traditional turkey. But ... what are their traditional dishes? I love to cook, so this was an excuse to take out my wide variety of cook books, to do a little research on the favorite foods of these three faraway lands.
I decided to roast a turkey, and found several traditional dishes of Mexico and Canada. The only traditional dish of Thailand I thought I could have a try was something called foufou. I told Evan about it, who checked in with his friend Tim. “Tim is crazy about foufou, Mom! You have to make it! Tim also said he could help you if you needed. ”
So Turkey Day morning found me busy in the kitchen. The last dish I cooked was foufou. I followed the steps to prepare foufou and finally placed it on the stove（火炉）to cook for ten minutes.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右；2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
At this time, I heard Evan’s excited voice, so I went out of the kitchen.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Just as I talked with Tim, I smelt something burning in the kitchen!
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