“BARBARA,” my husband, Bill, announced, “your birthday present is in the freezer.” _________ , I went to the freezer—and broke out _________ . Inside was a well-wrapped ice cream container. My _________ of ice cream is well-known in our home.

Then, _________ the wrappings, I laughed even harder. Instead of ice cream, the container _________ four large, hand-crafted wooden numbers. Bill had heard me say months earlier that I’d always wanted easy-to-read house numbers. I was _________ . The fun of his double _________ was what I loved.

The gift _________ me of a conversation I’d overheard at a department store. A woman was _________ a gift from her husband. “Wouldn’t you think that after 20 years George would know I never wear gold?” she joked—but I noted a bit of __________ .

I couldn’t help __________ the two styles of gift giving. George had __________ spent several hundred dollars on jewelry his wife didn’t __________ . Bill had spent perhaps $20, but, thinking carefully, he had chosen a gift that was just __________ for me. This is what gift-giving is all about. The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than its __________ . Choosing a gift needn't be a chore(琐事); it can be fun for both the receiver and the giver.

I was facing a decision. While delivering laundry into ________ bedroom, I came across my thirteen-year-old sister’s diary, suffused (弥漫) with ________. What was I to do?

I had always been ________ of my little sister. Her charming smile, endearing personality and many talents ________ my place as leading lady. I competed with her secretly and grew to hate her natural abilities. ________, we seldom spoke. I sought opportunities to ________ her. Her diary lay at my feet, and I didn’t think of the ________ of opening it, considering not her privacy, nor the morality of my action.

I took the book from the floor and opened it ________, looking through the pages, searching for my name, convinced that I would discover ________. As I read, the blood ran from my face. I felt ________ and sat on the floor. There was neither charge nor hate. There was a brief description of herself, her goals and her dreams followed by a short description of the person who has ________ her most.

I started to cry. I was her ________. She admired me for my personality, my achievements and, ironically (嘲讽地), my ________. She wanted to be like me. She had been watching me for years, quietly admiring my choices and actions. I stopped reading, ________ with the crime I had committed.

I had wasted years hating her and now I had violated her ________. It was I who had lost something beautiful, and it was I who would never ________ myself to do such a thing again. Reading the earnest words my sister had written seemed to ________ an icy barrier around my heart, and I longed to know her again. On that fateful afternoon, as I ________ the laundry and rose to my feet, I ________ to go to her—this time to experience instead of to judge, to ________ instead of to fight. After all, she was my sister.