Innehållsförteckning för December 2017/January 2018 från Reader's Digest

ARMY SPC. LARRY HARRIS was doing community-outreach work in Grand Rapids, Michigan, when seven-year-old Xzayvier Burchard- Mease rushed up to him on the sidewalk—only to rush back into his house to collect something to show the soldier. It was a stuffed bear dressed in full camouflage, just as Harris was. Xzayvier’s life dream was to become a soldier, his parents explained. “They told me that because of his leg condition, he’ll never be able to,” Harris said to WZZM 13. Xzayvier’s condition is called knee flexion contracture, in which one’s leg—the right one, in Xzayvier’s case—fails to straighten at the knee. Amputation was a real possibility, his parents told Harris. That was all the soldier needed to hear. He started to devise a remarkable plan. A month later, in October…

Alert: Stormtroopers On the Prowl Star Wars: Episode IX won’t land until the end of 2019, but the Force is with us already. In fact, wannabe warriors, such as these stormtroopers who turned up on London’s Millennium Bridge last year, roam the galaxy all the time. There are 88 “garrisons” sanctioned worldwide by an enthusiast organization called 501st Legion, and members take their characters seriously. The costumes are required to be 100 percent faithful to the movie versions, and each one can cost $1,800 or more. They’re worn to premieres, of course, but these superfans spend much of their time appearing at charity events and fund-raisers. Stormtroopers as a force of good? Let’s hope that Darth Vader doesn’t find out.…

WE MET MAX at the cargo pickup area of Alaska Airlines. A standard poodle born on Valentine’s Day in 2002, he came to us in a small blue crate. We had adopted him from an out-of-state breeder, and our only request was that he have a calm demeanor, able to endure the poking and cuddling of our eight-year-old daughter and six-year-old son. We were a sweet little family— me, my husband, and our children, Sophie and Jake. But for years I’d felt as if we wouldn’t really be complete until we had a dog. Also, my husband traveled some 200 days a year for his job, and I knew I’d feel safer with a large animal sleeping by the door. When we opened the crate, the last piece of our…

“We have to move out—I just sold a painting.” MANUFACTURERS often give shower curtains ethereal names such as Anastasia, Summer Mist, and even Cambridge. One day, a customer walked into our home-furnishings store while I was inputting an order for shower curtains. “Excuse me,” he said. “Do you have Sunday Hours?” I looked up from my computer and said, “Can you tell me what the pattern looks like?” “Let me rephrase,” he said. “Are you open on Sundays?” PETE HOELSCHER, Vancouver, Washington MY ULTRASOUND technician told me about a colleague’s patient. Her doctor had told her she might be having twins, and the young mother-to-be seemed anxious. But at the exam, the technician assured her, “You’re not having twins. There’s only one baby in there.” The young woman sighed with relief.…

t was approaching noon on December 21, 1943, in the Tanana River valley of Alaska, not far from the Arctic Circle, and the five men on the Iceberg Inez were preparing to crash. Minutes before, the crew of the B-24 bomber had been testing a modified system on the plane’s four propellers when the plane seemed to stall, sending it diving into a rollercoaster plunge. G-forces slammed pilots Leon Crane and Harold Hoskin as they lurched at the controls. Wind screamed over the cockpit glass. The airspeed gauge was redlining. The flight instruments were blinking out. Then something that sounded like a pistol shot came from the tail, followed by cracking noises. “Open bomb bays!” Crane shouted to the crew chief. “Bail out!” Hoskin yelled to the other crew members.…

JUST THE TICKET 1. Do Know What a Great Deal Looks Like “When to fly and buy” reports from hopper.com will tell you what price is a good deal for any given route. And Google Flights’ “tracked prices” feature will e-mail you when the price of a selected itinerary has gone up or down. 2. Don’t Stress if You Haven’t Booked Yet “Data from the past two years suggest the best time to book a domestic flight for the 2017 holiday season will be between three and seven weeks out,” says Randi Wolfson, head of communications at the travelsearch site skyscanner.com. 3. Do Check Several Online Travel Agencies “There’s a misconception that every online travel agency [OTA] has the same fares,” says George Hobica of airfarewatchdog.com. “But because they sometimes…

JANUARY 1 A new year ahead, full of auspicious and promising things! Think I’ll stop by Dairy Queen for a Blizzard, but is that too auspicious this early in the year? Hard to say. Hard to say. JANUARY 2 Had a fun breakfast with my girlfriend, Meredith. Risible, even. Later, I had a risible chat with Jeff at the watercooler. It’s nice to be back at work, though my holidays were pretty risible, too, by which I guess I mean a situation or thing having qualities by which to provoke laughter and/or amusement. JANUARY 3 Packed some pasta puttanesca for lunch today. I had a big presentation to make, which didn’t go so great. It went downhill when I described our first-quarter profits as having “the consistency of a pasta…

IT’S NO SURPRISE that the Hyatt family of Plantation, Florida, calls its annual holiday display Hyatt Extreme Christmas. Ever since 2006, on the day after Thanksgiving, Kathy and Mark Hyatt and their two kids have unveiled the full spectacle: more than 200,000 lights, a 30-foot Christmas tree, a 20-foot Ferris wheel, a 20-foot inflatable movie screen that shows Disney movies on a loop, life-size gingerbread men, blowing snow, a giant Nativity scene, Santa’s workshop, a Christmas countdown sign, and live animals, including a “reindeer” horse named Yofi—all packed onto the Hyatts’ just-under-an-acre lot. The display takes three months to assemble and attracts approximately 2,000 visitors each holiday season. It is lit Sunday through Thursday from 6 to 10 p.m. and until 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and it all…

IT’S SHOPPING SEASON, WHICH means you’ll be looking for a steal. Unfortunately, you’ll have lots of company. Pulling those credit and debit cards out of your wallet, entering your digits online—the holidays provide identity thieves with countless opportunities to swipe and swindle. That’s an especially big concern this year, after the Equifax security breach, which exposed the personal information— including birth dates, addresses, credit card numbers, and Social Security numbers—of more than 145 million Americans to potential crooks. As bad as that may sound, let’s put the Equifax disaster in perspective. Truth be told, some of your information was probably compromised long before that. Yahoo now says that data breaches have likely affected every one of its users. Target has just begun to settle cases related to its 2013 credit…

Last year, when our three-year-old great-granddaughter Kylie was taken to see Santa Claus, she made sure to give him her wish list of toys. A week later, she ran into a different Santa in a mall. He stopped to ask what she wanted for Christmas. Kylie was appalled and let him know: “If you can’t remember what I told you last week, how are you going to remember on Christmas Eve?!” MARY PAUL, Milwaukee, Wisconsin One Christmas Eve, there was a knock on our door. It was Santa— red suit, white beard, and all! My parents invited him in, and he proceeded to pose for photos with us and eat our cookies. After a while, he wished us all a merry Christmas and left. Once the door closed behind him, we…

THE BEST MEDICINE A WOMAN IS in an exclusive pet store looking to buy a sweater for her dog. After witnessing much hemming and hawing and the scrutinizing of the size of each item, the salesperson finally pipes in. “Why don’t you bring the dog in for a fitting?” he says. “I can’t do that,” the customer says. “The sweater is a surprise.” Submi tted by GEORGE KLOSS, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma ON THE 13TH DAY of Christmas, my true love said to me, “I think I might be a hoarder.” @JENSTATSKY A TURTLE’S CROSSING the road when he’s mugged by two snails. When the police show up to investigate, they ask him what happened. The shaken turtle replies, “I don’t know. It all happened so fast.” Source: beinghuman.com LATE SHOW HOST Stephen…

1Who put the X in Xmas? Turns out the Greeks did. What we English speakers know as the letter X is the same shape as the Greek letter chi, best known for its supporting role in sorority house names as well as in the Greek word for Christ (Χριστ?ς). Modern speakers aren’t the first to borrow Jesus’s Greek name for a holiday abbreviation: There’s evidence of Christmas being abbreviated to Xmas as far back as the 16th century; no offense intended then or now. 2There is no right way to spell Hanukkah. That’s because it’s a Hebrew word beginning with the consonant het, which has no English equivalent (the closest is probably the throaty ch sound at the end of Bach). While there’s no official way to transliterate this in…

Meet my newly discovered half sister at age 75. She found my contact information in an unopened letter stowed in our late father’s files. GA NEILLE HOSTVEDT Finally adopt a child who needs a loving family. Our daughter passed away while I was pregnant with her five years ago. ADRIANNA STUHR Write the memoir that has been percolating for years. JEN JACOBUS Survive my daughter’s senior year of high school. JOANNE FLEDDERMOM Find a church that truly accepts my alternative family. KRIS HAMLIN Learn to play the ukulele. STEVE RICHARDS Brag about my fifth Eagle Scout grandson. No pressure, Cody! JEANETTE GRONDA Stop listening to my psychic. TIA MCCAW Still drink great milk shakes and have good health. Those two go together, right? ANDY DAVIS Help someone overcome addiction. DONNA…

IF ONE THING ON YOUR wish list is a stress-free holiday, we’ve got a present for you. These shopping tips will save you time and money, with suggestions on how to investigate, automate, and delegate your gift hunt. Don’t feel guilty about outsourcing—after all, Santa employs helpers too. 1 Don’t Rack Your Brain Can’t figure out what to buy? Don’t be afraid to look for clues and ask for ideas. First, see whether the folks on your to-buy-for list have already dropped some virtual hints, in the form of a wish list on amazon.com or gifthero.com, or a Pinterest board of coveted items. If you strike out, encourage your lucky recipients to go on a virtual shopping spree, posting items they wish someone would buy for them. You can also…

From office get-togethers to swanky shindigs, you can commit a party foul anywhere. These tips can help save you. THE AWKWARD GREETING Smiling conveys openness and warmth, but if you immediately jump to a full-on grin, you will come across like a salesperson. Instead, try this trick: Stand in front of a mirror and repeat the word great in a number of funny voices. This should make you smile. The next time you meet someone, think great, and you’ll flash a naturallooking smile. Keep your arms uncrossed and your hands unclenched. If you can, stand up for greetings. If you’re in a booth at a restaurant and can’t get up, extend your hand and say, “Excuse me for not standing. Pleased to meet you.” Lastly, poor eye contact will make…

Simultaneously expressing itself as a solid, a liquid, and a gas, the common sneeze is one of nature’s grossest miracles. MIT researcher Lydia Bourouiba has a different name for sneezes, though: violent expiratory events. That’s also the title of a recent study in which her team analyzed sneezes, millisecond by millisecond, with a high-speed camera and sophisticated computer models. What did they find? There’s more to a sneeze than what you see in your hankie—and that could influence our understanding of the way diseases spread. Here’s a closer look at what scientists see when you say a-choo! (For more, visit lbourouiba.mit.edu.) 1 Like a blast of bird shot, the initial “jet phase” of a sneeze lasts only milliseconds but can send an estimated 40,000 droplets of various sizes scattering outward as fast as…

“I had all my medals made into one big medal.” THE VETERANS who attend our church were invited to wear their uniforms one Sunday. My husband, who did not wear his, instead stood up and pointed to his lapel and the First Cavalry Division emblem he’d received in Korea. He then explained sheepishly, “This is the only part of my uniform that still fits.” PAT QUESENBURY, Arlington, Texas Your funniest military anecdote may be worth $$$! For details, go to rd.com/submit. MY SIX-YEAR-OLD was playing with his toy soldiers, using a different voice for each one. Soldier No. 1: I have a bazooka, and I make a big boom. Soldier No. 2: I have a pistol that goes bang. Soldier No. 3: I have a Swiffer, and I can make your…