One of my fondest Christmas memories was also one of our family’s bleakest（最令人沮丧的）．We were just little kids，and on Christmas Day my mom ______ us all around her to tell us, ______, that there would be no presents because all we really wanted was to _____ for our daddy．He was very sick．I don’t remember anything else except four little girls surrounding my mother，crying _____ a miracle（奇迹）．
At that very moment，someone ______ loudly on the door．______ behind him was a merry group of soldiers from the Army base where my father ____ as a minister．News had ___ that we were in trouble，and his colleagues knew we needed some _____．
With all the excitement，even my dad，_____ in a blanket to keep warm，came down and sat in front of a roaring fire in our room to watch his children be _____ by good Samaritans（乐善好施的人）．The presents were unwrapped，and we girls ____ packages and found a doll each and four board games．
What is _____ to me is that I don’t even remember what sickness my father was suffering from．I _____ remember an evening of laughter and _____．There were no expensive toys but ______ moments of friendship and fun given by young men who knew that a family was having a(n）______ time．They gave their time and their _____ to little children who needed to laugh．
The most important things in life aren’t things．And what about the true ______ of holidays? I hope we all are able to remember a thing about the holidays that stirs（搅动）our hearts，that isn’t really a thing at all，but the smile on a child’s face because we take a moment to hug or ______ a tear．
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That cold January night, I was growing sick of my life in San Francisco. There I was, walking home at one in the morning after a tiring at the theatre. With opening night only a week away, I was learning my lines. I was having trouble my part-time job at the bank and my acting at night at the same time. As I walked, I thought seriously giving up both acting and San Francisco. ___had become too much for me.
As I walked down streets under tall buildings, I felt very and cold. I began running, both to keep warm and to keep away from any possible robbers. Very few people were still out except a few sad-looking homeless people under blankets.
About a block from my apartment, I heard a sound behind me. I turned , half expecting to see someone with a knife or a gun. The street was empty. I saw was a shining streetlight. , the noise had made me nervous, so I started to run fast. Not until I reached my apartment building and unlocked the door did I realize what the noise had been. It had been my wallet falling to the sidewalk.
I wasn’t cold or tired anymore. I ran out of the door and back to I’d heard the noise. I searched the sidewalk anxiously for fifteen minutes, my wallet was nowhere to be found.
Just as I was about the search, I heard the garbage truck pull up to the sidewalk next to me. When a voice from the inside. “Alisa Camacho?” I thought I was dreaming. How could this man know my name? The door opened, and out jumped a small red-haired man with an look in his eyes. “Is this what you’re looking for?” he asked, a small square shape.
It was nearly 3 a. m. by the time I got into bed. I get much sleep that night, but I had gotten my wallet back. I had gotten back some enjoyment of city life. I realized that the city couldn’t be a bad place people were willing to help each other.
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To celebrate the end of our exams, my friends and I went to a fast food restaurant.We____hamburgers and Coca Cola at the counter. When our____came,I started walking towards an empty table. By bad luck, my purse strap (带子) got____on a chair and the tray (托盘) that I was holding slipped_____my hands and went flying in the air. The tray, and its contents,_____on a man who was just about to_____a bite of his sandwich. I stared,greatly_____,as the drinks soaked (浸湿) his white shirt.
Then I_____my eyes and prepared myself for his burst of____.Instead,he said “It’s OK” to__ _me before he disappeared into the washroom.
Still shaky and unsure_____to do next, my friends and I went to a table and sat there, trying our best to look_____.A moment later, the man came out of the washroom and_____our table, my heart almost stopped
_____.I thought he was going to ask for my father’s___and call him.
To my surprise, he merely smiled at us, handed us some cash and said,“_____yourself new hamburgers. ”He then walked____without even finishing his food.
He could have made what was already an uncomfortable situation worse,_____he chose a different way and gave us a reason to believe that there is still_____in this world. I will never_____his actions.
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Zigfried, a little mouse, blew his breath on the frosty window of the farmhouse and rubbed it to see the outside. Still nobody came. Maybe today, he thought . It was only a few days before Christmas and he was watching for a miracle (奇迹).
This farmhouse had been too long. It needed a family. Zigfried’s made a noise. He realized that he hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday. He jumped from the windowsill (窗沿), grabbed a from his home, and went next door to Farmer Mike’s.
Farmer Mike’s house had been a great place for the little mouse the farmer married a wife who had a cat. Zigfried when he thought of it. He looked around cautiously as he into the room where grain was stored and was quite as he filled his bag with wheat. He was turning to leave when suddenly he a hot breath about his ear. His heart beat , and without thinking he started to run and luckily the cat’s paws (爪子).
The next afternoon Zigfried heard some good news: a family would be moving into the farmhouse soon. Zigfried’s granny would arrive on Christmas Eve to with him. He hoped that the family would come before his granny came. Before long, a car came the road leading to the house, with butter sandwiches, cheese and chocolate.
Zigfried’s Christmas miracle did arrive!
The house came the next few days. Zigfried every single hour of them. , the day before Christmas when he was drinking hot chocolate with a smile at the door of his home, he heard the of the children of the family about what they might get for Christmas. What? A cat? The froze on his face； his mouth fell wide open. After a long while, he at last found his voice: “Hey! Whose Christmas miracle is this?”
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We have been driving in fog all morning, but the fog is lifting now. The little seaside villages are , one by one. "There is my grandmother's house," I say, across the bay to a shabby old house.
I am in Nova Scotia on a pilgrimage (朝圣) with Lise, my granddaughter, seeking roots for her, retracing (追溯) memory for me. Lise was one of the mobile children, from house to house in childhood. She longs for a sense of , and so we have come to Nova Scotia where my husband and I were born and where our ancestors for 200 years.
We soon by the house and I tell her what it was like here, the memories back, swift as the tide (潮水).
Suddenly, I long to walk again in the where I was once so gloriously a child. It still a member of the family, but has not been lived in for a while. We cannot go into the house, but I can still walk 11 the rooms in memory. Here, my mother in her bedroom window and wrote in her diary. I can still see the enthusiastic family into and out of the house. I could never have enough of being them. However, that was long after those childhood days. Lise attentively as I talk and then says, " So this is where I 1 ; where I belong. "
She has her roots. To know where I come from is one of the great longings of the human To be rooted is "to have an origin". We need origin. Looking backward, we discover what is unique in us; learn the of "I". We must all go home again—in reality or memory.
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A little girl lived in a simple and poor house on a hill.Usually she play in the small garden.She could see over the garden fence and across the valley a wonderful house with shining golden windows high on another hill. she loved her parents and her family, she desired to live in such a house and all day about how wonderful and exciting must feel to live there.
At the age when she gained some skill and sensibility(识别力), she her mother for a bike ride the garden. Her mother finally allowed her to go, her keeping close to the house and not too far. The day was beautiful. The girl knew where she was heading! the hill and across the valley, she rode to the of the golden house.
she got off her bike and put it against the gate post, she focused on the path to the house and then on the house itself. She was very disappointed when she that all the windows were and rather dirty.
So and heart-broken, she didn’t go any further. She , and all of a sudden she saw an amazing . There on the other side of the valley was a little house and its windows were golden. Looking at her little home, she that she had been living n her golden house filled with love and care.Everything she dreamed was right there in front of her nose.
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