Do you love holidays but hate the increase weight that follows? You are not alone.

    Holidays are happy days with pleasure and delicious foods. Many people, however, are worried about the weight that comes along with the delicious foods.

     With proper planning, it is possible to control your weight. The idea is to enjoy the holidays but not to eat too much. You don't have to turn away from the foods that you enjoy. The following suggestions may be of some help to you.

    Do not miss meals. Before you leave home for a feast, have a small, low-fat snack. This may help to keep you from getting too excited before delicious foods.

    Begin with clear soup, fruit or vegetables. A large glass of water before you eat may help you feel full. Use a small plate; a large plate will encourage you to have more than enough.

    Better not have high-fat foods. Dishes that look oily or creamy have much fat in them.

    Choose lean meat. Fill your plate with salad and green vegetables.

    If you have a sweet tooth, try mints and fruit. They don't have fat content as cream and chocolate.

    Don't let exercise take a break during the holidays. A 20-minute walk after a meal can help burn off excess calories.

    Every man wants his son to be somewhat of a clone（克隆）, not in features but in footsteps. As he grows you also age, and your ambitions become more unachievable. You begin to realize that your boy, in your footsteps, could probably achieve what you hoped for. But footsteps can be muddied and they can go off in different directions.

    My son Jody has hated school since day one in kindergarten. Science projects waited until the last moment. Book reports weren't written until the final threat.

    I've been a newspaperman all my adult life. My daughter is a university graduate working toward her master's degree in English. But Jody? When he entered the tenth grade he became a "vo-tech" student (技校学生). They're called "motorheads" by the rest of the student body.

    When a secretary in my office first called him "motorhead", I was shocked. "Hey, he's a good kid," I wanted to say. "And smart, really."

    I learned later that motorheads are, indeed, different. They usually have dirty hands and wear dirty work clothes. And they don't often make school honor rolls (光荣榜).

    But being the parent of a motorhead is itself an experience in education. We who labor in clean shirts in offices don't have the abilities that motorheads have. I began to learn this when I had my car crashed. The cost to repair it was estimated at $800. "Hey, I can fix it," said Jody. I doubted it, but let him go ahead, for I had nothing to lose.

    My son, with other motorheads, fixed the car. They got parts (零件）from a junkyard, and ability from vo-tech classes. The cost was $25 instead of $800.

    Since that first repair job, a broken air-conditioner, a non-functioning washer and a non-toasting toaster have been fixed. Neighbors and co-workers trust their car repairs to him.

    These kids are happiest when doing repairs. They joke and laugh and are living in their own relaxed world. And their minds are bright despite their dirty hands and clothes.

    I have learned a lot from my motorhead: publishers need printers, engineers need mechanics, and architects need builders. Most important, I have learned that fathers don't need clones in footsteps or anywhere else.

    My son may never make the school honor roll. But he made mine.

    The islands of Malta and Gozo are brilliant for a family holiday, packed with fun places to visit whatever your children's ages. The islands' small size means everywhere is within easy reach.

    Sandy beaches and swimming spots

    One of Malta's best beaches for families is soft-sanded, sheltered Golden Bay. Older children can try activities such as stand-up paddle boarding, sailing or windsurfing, while the gentle slope of the beach makes it easy for younger kids to safely paddle in the sea.

    Eating out

    Children are welcome at most restaurants, though more upmarket places often only accept older kids. There are often kids' menus that tend to offer pizza, but you can always ask for a half portion of a starter dish (portions are huge in Maltese restaurants). With a wide range of cuisines on offer, children are bound to find something they'll like, Maltese food is strongly influenced by Italian cuisine, so there's pizza and pasta galore, and some kids will love the national dish-fried rabbit

    Accommodation

    Try to schedule at least a few days on Gozo as there are lots of self-catering farmhouses with pools to rent and it's even easier to get around than Malta. Smaller hotels in Valletta usually only accept older children.

    Transport and other tips

    The easiest way to get around Malta and Gozo is to drive, but the local bus service is reliable, easy to use, and fairly inexpensive. Buses are frequent between major towns, but only roughly hourly to and from smaller places. Ferries run between Malta and Gozo, and you can take tourist boats over to Comino.

    The first newspapers were written by hand and put up on walls in public place. The earliest daily newspaper was started in Rome in 59 BC. In the 700's the world's first printed newspaper was published. Europe didn't have a regularly published newspaper until 1609, when one was started in Germany.

    The first regularly published newspaper in the English language was printed in Amsterdam in 1620.In 1621, an English newspaper was started in London and was published once a week. The first daily English newspaper was the Daily Courant (每日新闻).It came out in March 1702.

    In 1690, Benjamin Harris printed the first American newspaper in Boston. But not long after it was first published, the government stopped the paper. In 1704, John Campbell started The Boston Newsletter (波士顿新闻通讯), the first newspaper published in the American colonies. By 1760, the colonies had more than thirty daily newspapers. There are now about 1,800 daily papers in the United States.

    Today, as a group, English language newspapers have the largest circulation (发行量) in the world. But the largest circulation for a newspaper is that of the Japanese newspaper Asahi Dhimbun (朝日新闻).It sells more than 11 million copies every day.

    In early November of 1942, my geology (地质学)class was supposed to go on a field trip to see the mica mine (云母矿). Although it rained, everyone showed up on time. I was the only girl in the class. We all fit into two cars.

    Near Deary, Mr. Tier, our teacher, went into a store to ask about the direction, while townsmen looked at us with curiosity. On the store owner's advice, we drove out into the hills for a few miles. Then we left the cars. We were afraid they would get stuck in the mud.

    Eventually, we located the mine near the top of the mountain. There was a very small hole, running about two or three hundred feet into the mountainside. The passage (通道) was so narrow that we could touch both sides with our hands, and not tall enough to allow us to stand up straight. The first boy held the torch; we took hold of the backs of each other's coats, in a line, and followed him in, ducking our heads. After getting in, we were disappointed because it was not the mine our teacher was looking for.

    The rain was coming down hard as we started back to the cars to go home. Back at Deary, we went into a drugstore and stood around its big heating stove to dry out. The clerk was a middle­aged lady. Seeing our entirely wet hair and clothes, she handed each of us a cup of hot water immediately and asked if there was anything wrong with any of us.

    Hiking eight miles in the rain had not reduced our interest at all. We all felt we had had a wonderful time, even if we didn't find the mine.

Everyone wants to be happy, but sometimes it can be difficult to feel happiness. That's because we have misunderstandings (误区) about happiness that can get in the way. The good news is that changing the way you think about happiness can help you to feel more joy each day.

Dr. Williamson from the charity Action for Happiness says, "Happiness is not about denying (拒绝承认) terrible feelings or being joyful all the time. It's about making the most of good times and learning to deal with bad times". Dr. Green believes that happiness comes when we feel good about who we ate and where our life is going.

Noticing when you feel happy and what you're doing or what's happening at that time can help you to find more happiness. For example, you may realize that working out a difficult puzzle makes you feel better than watching a favorite TV show. What helps you to feel happy might be different from what makes someone else happy.

Start a list of things that make you happy and keep adding to it as you discover new ones. Make time to do what you know makes you happy and remember that joy isn't only found in what you do for yourself—being kind and thoughtful to other people helps you feel happier, too.

There are misunderstandings that can make it hard to feel happy. One is that it's selfish (自私的) to be happy when other people are sad. However, stopping yourself from being happy doesn't make other people less sad. In fact, research has shown that happy people spread happiness to others. Another thing is thinking that you need lots of money and things to be happy. Studies have shown that when people win the lottery (彩票), they feel a short burst of happiness but they soon return to feeling the same as they did before they won. So it's important to notice the simple things that make you feel happy.