How to Trick or Treat

The jack-o-lanterns are carved,your costume（服装）is all picked out,and the sun is just starting to set on Halloween night.【小题1】With a few simple tips,you can have a safe and successful trick-or-treat experience.

Start trick-or-treat at around 6:00 or 6:30 pm.You’ll probably want to start trick-or-treat as soon as you get home from school,but be patient!Have a good dinner to fuel you up for the night,and wait until the sun starts to get a little lower before you head out.【小题2】

Wear or make a costume that you can move in easily.When you are deciding what to dress up as,choose a costume that doesn’t drag on the ground.Make sure your shoes are comfortable,too-you’ll be walking around in them all night!【小题3】Go with face paint instead!

Knock on the door or ring the doorbell.If no one answers your knock after a minute or so,you can try one more time.【小题4】It might feel a little disappointing,but you’ll save time and get more candy if you move on fast.

【小题5】After you’ve gotten your candy,look up and say“Thank you!Happy Halloween!”This shows that you’re polite and appreciative,and is especially important if you decide to come back next year.They might remember you and give you an extra piece!

Chinese New Year has been welcomed in Britain with its biggest ever program of events and celebrations.

From London’s Trafalgar Square to major cities across Britain, tens of thousands of British people have joined Chinese communities to celebrate the arrival of the Year of the Rooster.

In Manchester there was a Dragon Parade, led by a spectacular 54-meter long dragon, ending is Chinatown where there was traditional Chinese entertainment, more than 6,000 lanterns, street food villages and a fireworks show. Celebrations also took place in Liverpool. Birmingham, Lake District, Durham, Edinburgh. Leeds and Newcastle.

Academic Dr. Wu Kegang said that the Chinese New Year event in Britain “is now bigger than ever and it is growing every year.”

When Wu arrived in Britain 26 years ago from Guangdong, south China, the first thing he noticed was that Chinese New Year was celebrated mainly in towns and cities with big Chinese communities. “You would go to London Chinatown and join your countrymen to celebrate, or to Chinatowns in places like Liverpool and Manchester for what were events almost exclusively held for Chinese people,” Wu recalled.

“Now it is so different, and we are seeing local communities all over the country taking part alongside their own Chinese populations,” he said. “It is clear to me that the celebrations will continue to grow in Britain. Chinese New Year has earned its place in the calendar of events in Britain, and is here to stay.”

Christmas cards are a big tradition in the English-speaking world. In 2017, people in Britain sent and received about 900 million cards. That’s an average of about twelve cards for every person, from tiny babies to the oldest grandparents. The number of cards that are sent around Britain causes an annual headache for the postal service. Each year, the postal service has to take on seasonal staff to help with the extra mail, and postal sorting offices are stretched to their maximum capacity and sometimes beyond it.

In 1994, before the age of email and social media, the service handled about 1.6 billion cards! In spite of advertisements telling people to “Post Early for Christmas”, few people got round to sending their cards off before December 10th; and from that point on, the postal service slowed down. Until the age of faxes, emails and social media, the pre-Christmas period often caused a lot of problems for firms, as “urgent” letters and documents took several days to reach their destinations by post, which were slowed down by the mass of Christmas mail!

During the month of December in Britain, a house with no Christmas cards is like a pub with no beer. For the most part, however, people of all faiths and of no faith join in the tradition of celebrating Christmas as a festival, whether they do so for religious reasons or not. Every British home at Christmas is merrily decorated not just with hollies, but also with a display of Christmas cards received from friends, family members, neighbors, employers and a variety of other people. In some places, the number of Christmas cards people receive is seen as a measure of their status among their friends and neighbors.

As for the subjects of Christmas cards, the range, today, is enormous. At one time, two principal themes predominated (占多数): the Christmas story, with pictures of the biblical scenes; and “traditional Christmas”, with imaginary scenes of Christmas which included burning wood fires and happy-looking parents and kids sitting together. Today, while “traditional Christmas” is favored by most people, there is no limit to the variety of pictures on cards.

While more and more people send e-cards to their friends and family members, you can’t hang an e-card on the wall, and you can’t decorate a room with rows of e-cards. Sending and receiving Christmas cards is still best done by “snail mail” which includes a real card and a real envelope. It’s much more fun.