My parents grew up during the Depression(大萧条) attending small country churches. At the close of Christmas Eve services, each child was given a brown paper bag containing an apple, an orange, nuts and several chocolates.

Years later, whenever Dad recalled that tradition, his eyes shone reliving the memory. My mother didn't share his enthusiasm. She always said the chocolates tasted cheap and old.

    Cheap chocolates or not, the paper bags with goodies were an event. Gifts of any sort during the Depression were rare, especially in large farm families with seven children.

    When our children were young and we were home for Christmas one year, Mom and Dad gave each of the grandkids a brown paper bag holding an apple, an orange, nuts and several chocolates. When we finished the 8-hour drive home after the holiday, there was a message waiting on the phone when we walked in the door. “Your ungrateful kids left their apples and oranges in the back of our refrigerator. No more fruit for them!” Grandpa and Grandma were joking, of course, but still there was a degree of disrespect in the kids leaving behind thoughtfully chosen gifts.

    But the paper bag didn't have a context for our children. They had never known fruit to be a scarcity(缺乏). They didn't appreciate the gift because they had never experienced the need the gift was meant to fill.

    The same is true of Christmas today. We don't appreciate the true gift of the season because we don't understand the need the gift was given to fill.

It's not like we don't know we have needs. We know them, all right—patience, love, self-control, strength, courage, faithfulness, forgiveness—it's just that we have become experts at numbing(使麻木) ourselves to our needs.

    The true gift of the season is a perfect fit for our every need. When a gift like apples and oranges fits a need, there is a cheerful satisfaction. When the gift of a Christmas tree fits a need, there is the joy of Christmas.

    The National Postal Museum is divided into galleries that explore America's postal history. Visitors will have a full picture of the creation and fantastic varieties of postage stamps.

    World of Stamps

    Video images bring stamps to life and attract visitors who explore the surrounding displays. Visitors encounter the world's first postage stamp — the 1840 Penny Black and learn how it revolutionized communication. Stamp images, including Dr. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech and the stamp that helped raise almost $72 million dollars for breast cancer research, explain how stamps have shaped history and honored people and places worldwide.

Gems of American Philately

    Visitors have the opportunity of examining 13 of the most rare and highly valued stamps in the world of the stamp collection, including the most famous American stamp of all, the 1918 Inverted Jenny. A video explains why the Inverted Jenny and other stamps displayed here are the most valuable. The treasures in this area are rarely available for public viewing. Each tells a story about an important event in US history.

    Mail Marks History

    The markings on mail provide valuable clues to the surprising ways mail has been transported over time, including challenges and even disasters encountered along the way. You will understand these markings by following the journeys of three historic letters.

    Connect with US Stamps

    Visitors explore their own connections with stamps. At three touch screen tables, they create their own stamp collection based on the topics that interest them most. They can also create their own stamp designs. Visitors have the chance to view videos in which stamp designers talk about their craft, stamp collectors explain what they collect and why, and footage(片段) shows the process of making stamps.

    Karen Bystedt was born in Israel, but lived in London and California as a child. In 1982, as a photography (摄影) student at New York University, she was photographing male models for a book when she came across an ad featuring Andy Warhol, a very famous artist. She thought it would be really great to put him in her book.

    So she called Andy Warhol at his studio in Union Square and asked if she could photograph him.

Two weeks later, Bystedt took a rented Hasselblad camera and lights to Warhol's famed "Factory" on 14th street. She ended up taking 36 pictures, and published two in her book, Not Just Another Pretty Face, published in 1983. Warhol came to its launch (发行) party—and that was the last time she saw him.

    A few years later, she packed the portraits in a box and moved to Los Angeles. But after she'd gotten settled, she couldn't find them. She couldn't remember whether she had given the photos away or just left them in some forgotten storage unit. Either way, she thought they were lost forever.

    In 2011, Bystedt became determined to find the missing films(底片). She spent two weeks going through two old garages, where she had put a bunch of belongings decades before. In a cardboard box, she found ten of the original films, covered in dust. She and a friend spent four months digitizing and cleaning the images up, pixel(像素) by pixel.

    Bystedt was not content to merely publish the unseen photos. She invited contemporary artists to paint over and around her Warhol pictures, breathing new life into her old work. So she began reaching out to artists, seeing if they would be interested in putting their own stamp on the pictures.

    The responses was overwhelming. Bystedt's new exhibit, "The Lost Warhols," opened on May 1, 2018 at 178 Sixth Avenue in Soho, New York, included 66 different interpretations of her portraits from 34 artists.

    Fourth-grade teacher Tori Nelson allowed one of her students to shave her head in the schoolyard, after bullies（仗势欺人者） teased him about his own buzz cut. Ms. Nelson got the idea after noticing that Matthew Finney, a shy boy from her homeroom at Winlock Miller Elementary School in Washington State, was standing outside his classroom crying and wearing a winter hat.

    Ms. Nelson could see the back of his neck had been shaved, and since Matthew usually had very thick curly brown hair, she realized that he'd had a haircut over the weekend. She asked him what was wrong， and he said he'd gotten a buzz cut for the summer. But this morning, a fifth grader on the bus made fun of him, and he didn't want to come to class and get laughed at by other kids. Ms. Nelson tried to convince Matthew to come inside, but since school rules banned kids from wearing hats indoors he refused—explaining that he was afraid of showing his haircut to the other children in case they also made fun of him.

    "Finally I said, 'If you take your hat off and come to class, I'll let you give me a buzz cut too,' Ms. Nelson told Yahoo Parenting." I figured it's just hair, and mine is already short anyway. I might as well get it shorter in time for the warm weather.

    Matthew excitedly took her up on the offer, and Ms Nelson and another teacher gathered all the fourth graders together during break time. A school employee brought in scissors, which Matthew used to the cheers of his classmates, excitedly watching as their teacher's hair fell away onto the ground in the schoolyard.

    "It was a lot of fun for the kids, and it helped Matthew feel better about himself." said Ms Nelson." You have to do what it takes to reach children. Teaching isn't just about reading and writing: it's about self-worth and accepting differences.

    Mr. Brown was a writer. He wrote many books, and he thought they were quite good. He lived in the city. One morning, he went to a small town near the city to visit a friend. He went there by bus. When he got to the town, he saw a bookshop not far from the bus stop. As it was early, he decided to go in and have a look. There were many books in the shop. He was very happy that all the books in the shop were written by him. "Where are other writer's books?" he asked the man in the shop. The man looked up at him and answered. "Oh, they are all sold out."

    Yoga is an ancient physical and spiritual practice originating in India. The word '"yoga" comes from Sanskrit (梵文) and means to join or to unite, symbolizing the union of body and mind. Today it is practiced in various forms around the world and continues to grow in popularity. Recognizing its universal appeal, the United Nations declared 21 June as the International Day of Yoga in 2014 to raise awareness worldwide of the many benefits of practicing yoga.

    Yoga is an invaluable gift from an ancient tradition. It's not just about exercise but a way to discover the sense of oneness with yourself nature and the world. There is no written record of who invented yoga. Yoga practitioners (从业者) passed down the principles to their students. The earliest written record of yoga is generally believed to have been written by Patanjali, an Indian master who lived somewhere between 2,000 and 2,500 years ago.

    Various yoga types give you multiple choices. Hatha yoga is the most widely practiced type and is excellent for beginners. It is gentle with slow and smooth movements. Kundalini yoga combines a singing session besides body and mental control. Bikram yoga is practiced in a heated room. It is to loosen muscles and to sweat to clean the body and remove symptoms of disease and pain. Ashtanga yoga is taught as a difficult workout where you move quickly from one gesture to another to build strength and patience.

    In recent years, the World Health Organization has urged countries to help their citizens reduce physical inactivity, which is among the top ten leading causes of death worldwide, and a key risk factor for non-communicable diseases, such as cancer and diabetes. Yoga is a proper exercise. It is known for its ability to ease stress and anxiety. It may also help reduce several risk factors for heart diseases and promote a better sleep.