In our family holidays are New Year, Easter and Women's Day. But we love the New Year the most. Two weeks before the first of January we decorate the Christmas tree with colored balls, figurines and sweets. My mother and I cook festive meals almost the whole day, because there are always a lot of guests for the New Year. For New Year we give gifts to relatives. At midnight we turn on the TV and make a wish for the chimes, we congratulate each other on the New Year. The New Year is always very cheerful, because they say "How to meet a year, so you'll spend it."
My favourite hobby is collecting stamps. It’s important to mention that in fact my mother began collecting them when I was a child. When I turned ten she presented me the three albums she had already collected. Since that time I added two more, so that now I have got a bigger collection than any of my friends. I get my stamps in different ways. I rarely buy them in shops. My father who often travels abroad on business trips brings me stamps from different parts of the world. I also have got pen-friends in foreign countries and they send me stamps in return for the ones I send to them. I really love my hobby. It’s so pleasant to sit at a table in the evening with my albums arranging the new stamps in them, writing the names of the countries or, if I’m too tired, just looking through them. Each stamp has a story to tell about distant countries and famous people. I see pictures of men and women, birds and animals I have never heard of before. Kings and presidents pass before my eyes and I can follow the history of whole nations. Besides, some of the stamps are of great value as they are very difficult to find. In conclusion I want to say that my stamp collection is my treasure. I hope one day I’ll be able to pass my hobby on to my younger brother. I think it’s a very good way of getting him interested in such subjects as history, geography and languages.
