讀雜誌：Reader’s Digest, December 2025/ January 2026

I read the article ‘Holiday Magic’ on Reader’s Digest December 2025/ January 2026. Ruth gave me the magazine.

A) (1) The Flight Before Christmas ( Lucky kids get to visit Santa’s workshop)
It was two weeks before Christmas at Denver International Airport, and a huge Boeing 777 plane had taxied down one of the runways. 
And the plane's passengers-about 100 local children ages 3 to 10 and their family members-were wearing matching T-shirts adomned wich the words "Fantasy Flight." 
This was one of 13 flights in December 2024 organized by United Airlines as part of its 30 plus-year Fantavy Flights program, which gives children wth serious medical conditions or other challenges a unique holiday experience. 
The participating airport locations-including Los Angeles, Houston, Cleveland Fort Lauderdale, Newark, London and more-partner with local hospitals and nonprofits that serve children facing cancer, disability or homelessnes.
"The kids really deserve this day away from the daily challenges that they have, and it brings some magic into their lives," says Jonna McGrath. vice president of airport operations for United's Denver hub and a longtime Fantasy Flight volunteer.
In Denver, the children and their chaperones are greeted by Santa's helpers as soon as they arrive at the airport. says McGrath.
Pulling off this daylong celebration takes hundreds of United employees and other volunteers who decorate, staff the event (perhaps in costume as Frosty the Snowman, or Princess Elsa from Frozen) and clean up afterward. Though there's a lot of work involved, it's one of employees' favorite days of the year. There's usually a waitlist to help out.
Scott Rogers spent 25 years working for United as a zone controller and supervisor of airport operations in Denver. He's also been playing Santa for the city's Fantasy Flights since 1993. Rogers continues to volunteer well into his retirement because he knows how much the Fantasy Flight experience means to kids. One of his favorite moments is when the children emerge from the plane and first catch sight of him in his jolly red suit.
"They go racing to Santa, and you can't even walk because they're all clinging to your legs," he says.
Scott remembers taking a photo with one little girl a few  years ago. She was about 8 years old and fighting cancer. After meeting him, she made him a candy cane at an arts and crafts station and came back to give it to him,saying . "Santa , this is for you?
At the event wound down,Scott was in a dressing room changing out of his red suit when a soft knock came on the door . "There is a little girl out heve who wants to talk to you"a woman told him.
"So I'm throwing everything back on. and it was that same girl,” he recalls. "She came in and said , ‘I know I’m not going to be  here next year’ And she sat on my lap, and we  talked for 40 minutes about what was going on and how happy this day had made her" he says. “That was a tough one for me.”
Embracing both the hard and happy moments, 
Kayla Garcia, CEO of Girls Inc, says. "We all left believing in the love of others.”

(2) Secret Santa Saves the Day 
It was 1 a.m. on Christas morning, for Marisa Shumaker, like so many other parents, she had holiday magic to make.
For weeks, her 4-year old daughter, Aubree, had been asking for one thing only for Christmas: a "real piano keyboard," not just some dinky one made for little kids. Now that Aubree was asleep, Shumaker pulled the box from its hiding spot in their home in Bel Air, Maryland, ready to unveil the 61-key keyboard with full-size keys-perfect for (serious) beginners like Aubree.   But when she opened the box, only the stand and bench were inside. No keyboard.
Panic overtook her as she realized what she hadn't noticed before: The keyboard was sold separately.
Shumaker posted in a neighborhood Facebook group: "I'm about to cry," she wrote, explaining the situation. "I'm so devastated this will ruin her Christmas."
Andy Spencer, who lives 5 miles from Shumaker, was crawling into bed just before 2 a.m. when he saw her plea.
"Any parent would be in a panic," Spencer says. "I wouldn't want anyone who believes in the magic of Christmas to be disappointed."
He thought of the keyboard his wife had gotten for their daughter, Hailey, Spencer got out of bed and headed down the hall to see whether Hailey was awake.
She and her brother, Justin, both home from college, were still up. When their dad told them what was going on, they were eager to help. 
"My daughter was more than willing to give up the keyboard, and my son was like, 'We've got to do this,'"Spencer says.
So he typed a message to Shumaker: "Where do you live? We have a smaller keyboard that we could part with."
Reading the message, Shumaker couldn't believe how quickly her luck had turned. "The fact that he didn't know me at all . not many people are like that nowadays," she says.
"What do you want for it?" Shumaker asked, figuring she'd send them some money.
"No, seriously, it's free," Spencer replied. All he wanted, he told her, was a photo of a happy Aubree on Christmas morning.
Unless, maybe . "We all joked together that if she ended up being the next Taylor Swift, I wanted a shoutout," he says.
Just a few hours later, Aubree woke up and scampered into the living room.
"Mom!" she exclaimed when she saw the keyboard. She immediately began tickling the keys, and her face lit up like the Christmas tree beside her as those first few notes emerged.
Later that day, Shumaker messaged Spencer to say thanks once again and to tell him that Aubree was so engrossed with her new keyboard, she had several presents and a stocking still unopened,
He showed the message to Hailey and Justin. "We all had a good chuckle over it," says Spencer. What had been such a little thing for them meant everything to someone else.
Aubree practices on her keyboard almost every day, her mother standing behind her and teaching her classics like "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" It's often the first thing she wants to do in the morning, hopping on and off the bench throughout the day.
The whole experience of that night had Shumaker believing in Christmas magic. "It didn't hit me until I got home," she says. "I literally just met Santa Claus, like, in real life. That was actually him, and he came with elves and everything."

（3）Our Hanukkah Miracle
Christmas takes on new meaning for a Jewish couple
When we were given a Dec. 24 due date for our daughter's birth, my wife and I had some reservations. A winter birthday in New England, where we live, is dreary enough already. But a birthday on or close to Christmas risks 
becoming an afterthought. Friends wouldn't be around for her birthday parties.  Nativity scenes would remind our daughter that, for much of the world, someone else's birth was more important. 
Then again, there could be pros to our daughter having a Christmas Eve birthday. The date would be easy to remember. She'd always get a holiday from school or work. Our Jewish obstetrician would be available for the delivery. And, as Jews ourselves, we'd finally have a reason to celebrate on Christmas. 
For us, too, Yuletide would now be a season of gift giving, good cheer and hymns to a momentous birth (though admittedly, the "Happy Birthday" song lacks the gravitas of "Silent Night"). Maybe we'd even crack open some egg- nog in the hospital to celebrate.
Historically. Christmas was a dark period for European Jews, who faced the perennial accusation of killing Jesus. To avoid being attacked, the traditional advice (and sometimes the law) was to stay indoors. For an embattled minority in Christian-dominant countries, Christmas was a time to be wary, not merry. So while many non-Christians in America celebrate Christmas now, the Jewish relationship with the holiday remains fraught.
Today, thankfully, some Jewish Christmas traditions less somber than hiding out in fear have developed. Members of the Chabad sect hold nightlong chess tournaments on Christmas Eve. Other Jews go out for Chinese food and to see a movie in theaters on Christmas Day. And some Jews, especially those with non-Jewish partners, do celebrate Christmas, perhaps adding a Star of David ornament to their tree.
Now, it seemed, my Jewish household would have a Christmas tradition to call our own. We wouldn't be getting a tree, but there would be presents under the mezuzah on Christmas Eve.
However,  my wife went into labor three weeks before her due date, which in 2021 meant day seven of Hanukkah, right around the time we would have been lighting the menorah for day eight, the final night of celebration. She was, we like to say, our Hanukkah miracle. And since her birth took the place of lighting the candles, it only seemed right to name her Liora, which is Hebrew for "light of mine."   
In our household, the revolt of the Maccabees traditionally celebrated on Hanukkah has been joined by a new story: the miraculous early birth of a Jewish Christmas baby.

(4) The Christmas Tree Mystery
Who decorated the big pine along a remote stretch of Montana highway?
For the past 16 winters, motorists traveling on a remote stretch of Interstate 90 through the Native American Crow Reservation in Montana have noticed a lone pine tree sticking up from the strip of grass between the northbound and southbound roads.
It stands out because it is decorated for Christmas.
"Some people thought that it was the Native Americans that were doing it," says Carl Stark, who lives in nearby Sheridan, Wyoming. 
The explanation comes back to German, 71, who grew up in Mexico.  After moving to America 46 years ago for a job with a trucking business, he was delighted to be assigned the Texas- Calgary route, which took him through 
the landscapes of his childhood dreams several times a month.
On that icy December day, he was driving south,  when he noticed the pine tree sticking out of deep snow, he stopped his truck. As he drove away, he felt bad. 
A week later, heading to Calgary again, he stopped by the tree and tied on some ribbons, resolving that the following Christmas, he would do the job properly. "On my next trip, I will dress it well. I promise,” he says.
The following year, German returned in November with a handful of decorations. The year after that, he brought even more. But this time, he had company: A police officer showed up,  the officer told him: "Thank you for the gift . [you should] leave a little note, leave a little something that tells us who you are."
So the next year, German brought a sign he had crafted at home, reading "Feliz Navidad from TX," and stuck it next to the tree. Every November that followed, he returned to the same spot with increasingly elaborate decorations. removing them at the end of the winter
He did it incognito. 
But as the years passed, he noticed small additions to the tree: a toy, or a little gift. Then in 2017, he spotted a plastic bag tied to a branch with a note inside. It read: "Thank you. You have no idea how much impact you have in the community."
The authors were Jonnie and Carl Stark, who had been speculating about the decorator's identity for years.
"German started all of this. He wanted no recognition, he wasn't look- ing for any notoriety-he was just doing it out of the goodness of his heart," says Carl Stark. "So we're just his elves."

B) I think: 
Christmas in the United States is not merely a religious festival but a cultural one celebrated by all, much like the Spring Festival in China. Decorate everywhere, do good deeds, help each other.
In the past, China experienced the Cultural Revolution, with criticism and denunciation, detention in cattle sheds, house raids, and physical fights... . Nowadays, there is the Russia-Ukraine war….
We hope that the world will move towards peace and friendship, and that people will live in happiness and joy.