I have received many Christmas gifts over the years. I remember many of them, from the tape recorder I _____ from my dad in 1975 to the black guitar my wife gave me several years ago. The best gift I ever received was presented to me by a _____. I never even knew his name and I only had contact with him for less than 60 _____. His Christmas present to me changed the way I thought about _____ and about Christmas.

It was several years ago when my wife asked me to meet her at the local _____. They had advertised a kind of _____ for children that she wanted to purchase for our son. We stood with a very large crowd, waiting for the manager to blow the whistle, _____ his employees to cut the shrink-wrap off the box. After a while the whistle was blown. It was like _____ a bucket of bait (鱼饵) into a tank of sharks. I knew this was going to happen.

As the bikes began to _____ decrease in number, I saw my opportunity to wrap my ______ around the corner of one of the boxes. I ______ one box and suddenly felt some mild resistance. I ______ to see one of the largest gentlemen I had ever seen in my life. I felt somewhat ______. Obviously, tattoos (文身) were his hobby.

I started to ______ the box but he gently pushed it back in my direction and back into my hands. He then ______ it into my shopping cart. He looked at me, ______, and said, “Merry Christmas.” My wife and I went to the ______, paid for the bike and went home. All the way home I was thinking that this moment was by far the best Christmas ______ I had ever received. I will never forget the ______ of a stranger and the gentleness of a human heart in a ______ act.

   I was one of the young US soldiers in Saudi Arabia. At one time before the Internet，our only lifeline to friends and family was the mail we sent and received.

One evening the mail soldier called my name and，instead of a letter，handed me a large box from my grandmother in Oklahoma. One of the great hardships of the war for me was the absence of my grandmother's cooking—her fried chicken and onion，corn bread，and，most of all，her desserts. But on that evening I was about to take a gastronomic（美食的） journey home: I opened the box and found two dozen pies made by my grandmother.

A man from New York approached and asked me what I had received. I couldn't answer；my mouth was full of pie. So I just offered him one. “So nice！”he said. “What are they？”He had to wait a few moments for an answer，but eventually I explained. As insurance，I offered him another pie to keep him quiet.

Once a day for the next three weeks，I imagined returning home to my grandmother's kitchen，if only I had had a few sweet bites at a time.

Some of my earliest memories are associated with my grandmother's pies. She had been baking pies since before the Great Depression. She would have astonished the judges on today's TV cooking challenges. I remember coming across a persimmon（柿子）tree once while out hiking. It was autumn，and the fruit was soft and sweet. I picked a few dozen and brought them to Grandma. Guess what！The next day I walked into her kitchen to find a persimmon pie waiting for me.

Alanis Morissette, a Canadian singer and song writer, is 【小题1】 excellent superstar. She has made several albums, but her album Jagged Little Pill, which 【小题2】 (publish) in 1995 , made her world famous. Last Thursday night, hundreds of her fans saw her first 【小题3】 (perform) in the Corn Exchange in Cambridge, England since her song Uninvited 【小题4】 (win) this year’s Grammy Award for the best rock song. It was 【小题5】 (extreme) cold that night, but the audience were enthusiastic. During the concert, she played a few songs from her new album, such as Everything But…,【小题6】 tells the story of someone 【小题7】 (look) for love in the wrong places. Morissette gave a 【小题8】 (create) and powerful performance in another song Utopia, whose singing was full of feelings.【小题9】 (impress) by Morissette’s brilliant music and singing, the people present were excited. At the end of the concert, she ended the evening 【小题10】 a new song about the life of a superstar. After the concert, it is widely agreed that she is really a superstar！

In a different evening of November two years ago, we had a big party to celebrate Thanksgiving Day in the Concert Hall in our school. Present at the party was all the students and teachers, apart from some of the school leaders. Working together on stage, the teachers and students gave a lot of wonderfully American performances. For an example, they cooperated with each other perform witty skits（滑稽短剧）as well as singing and dancing. To our surprises, they also played magic tricks. The performances were very amazing that we all had a good time that evening.

Therefore, happy time really flies. The moment finally comes when the party came to an end. We are looking forward to get together to perform again.