Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving Day, falling on the Friday after the fourth Thursday in November.

【小题1】

On Black Friday, Many people choose to take trips to visit family members or friends who live in other areas or go on vacation. Shopping for Christmas presents is also popular on Black Friday. Many stores have special offers and lower their prices of some goods, such as toys.

Black Friday is a public holiday in some states. 【小题2】 Many organizations also close for the Thanksgiving weekend. Some stores extend their opening hours on Black Friday. Public transportation systems may run on their normal schedule or may have changes. 【小题3】

Background of Black Friday

【小题4】 One theory is that the wheels of vehicles in heavy traffic on the day after Thanksgiving Day leave many black marks on the road surface, leading to the term “Black Friday”. The other theory is that the term “Black Friday” comes from an old way of recording business accounts. 【小题5】 Many businesses, particularly small businesses, started making profits before Christmas. They hoped to start showing a profit marked in black ink on the day after Thanksgiving Day.

More recently, Black Friday has been exported to nations outside of North America such as the United Kingdom by major online retailers like Amazon or Apple. In 2011, IBM reported online Black Friday sales were up by 24.3%, according to a study that includes 500 retailers.

Santa Claus is someone who will remain in the hearts of children forever. He is the make-believe person who brings toys and other gifts to children at Christmas.

To grown-ups, he is a special symbol of goodwill and selfless giving. Santa Claus also has another name — Saint Nicholas.

Saint Nicholas came from the Dutch who settled in New York long ago. The Dutch believed Saint Nicholas gave gifts to children. They honored this kindly Saint with a yearly festival on December sixth.

The English-speaking people who lived nearby greatly enjoyed Dutch festivals. And they brought the Saint and the custom of giving gifts into their own celebration at Christmas time. The Dutch spoke the name “Saint Nicholas” very fast. It sounded like “sinterklaas”. And so, when the English said this word, it sounded like Santa Claus.

The picture of Santa Claus came from Thomas Nast. He was an American painter born in Bavaria. He painted pictures for Christmas poems. Someone asked him to paint a picture of Santa Claus. Nast remembered when he was a little boy in southern Germany, every Christmas a fat old man gave toys and cakes to the children. So when Nast painted the picture, his Santa Claus looked like the kindly old man of his childhood.

And through the years, Nast’s painting has remained as the most popular picture of Santa Claus.

Santa can be seen almost everywhere in large American cities during the Christmas season. Some stand on street corners asking for money to buy food and gifts for the needy. Others are found in stores and shopping centers. It is easy to find them by the long lines of children waiting to tell Santa what they want for Christmas. If one took a vote among children to learn who their favorite person was, there is no question who would win — Santa Claus.

The founder of Earth Day was Gaylord Nelson, a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin. During the late 1960s, Americans witnessed the uninvited side effects of high productivity. Factories and power plants were sending out smoke and industrial waste while Americans were using petrol for their massive(大量的) cars, making air pollution almost synonymous with the nation’s development.

What moved Senator Nelson to action was the 1969 massive oil spill in California, the largest in the United States at that time. The spill proved to be an environmental nightmare as it had a significant effect on marine life, killing about 3,500 sea birds, as well as marine animals such as dolphins, elephant seals and sea lions, fueling public anger. Inspired by the student antiwar movement at that period of time, Nelson found it an appropriate time to direct the energy of the students towards a fight for environmental protection. He decided that it was time to educate the Americans on the need to protect the environment. Thus Earth Day was born in 1970, and public environmental awareness took centre stage.

On 22^nd April 1970, millions of Americans took to the street and thousands of students marched to appeal for a healthy, sustainable environment. There was now a new synergy(协同作用) among different groups which had previously been fighting their causes related to the environment. Their fight for environmental conservation became so overwhelming that affected businesses were forced to follow environmental standards if they wanted to continue their operations.

As it became more apparent that environmental issues were not just localized ones but a global concern, the year 1990 saw Earth Day reach out to many more around the world. Earth Day 1990 helped pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, bringing together many nations for a united effort towards protecting the environment.