阅读理解专项练习：1When families gather for Christmas dinner, some will stick to formal traditions dating back tograndma's generation. Their tables will be set with the good dishes and silver, and the dress codewill be Sunday best. But in many other homes, this china-and-silver elegance has given way to a stoneware (粗陶) and stainless informality, with dresses assuming an equally casual-Friday look. For hosts andguests, the change means greater simplicity and comfort. For makers of fine china in Britain, itspells economic hard times. Last week Royal Doulton, the largest employer in Stoke-on-Trent, announced that it is eliminating 1,000 jobs -- one-fifth of its total workforce. That brings to more than 4, 000 the number of positions lost in 18 months in the pottery (陶瓷) region. Wedgwood and other pottery factories made cuts earlier. Although a strong pound and weak markets in Asia play a role in the downsizing, the layoffs inStoke have their roots in earthshaking social shifts. A spokesman for Royal Doulton admitted that thecompany "has been somewhat slow in catching up with the trend" toward casual dining. Families eat together less often, he explained, and more people eat alone, either because they are single or they eat infront of television. Even dinner parties, if they happen at all, have gone casual. In a time of long work hours anddemanding family schedules, busy hosts insist, rightly, that it's better to share a takeout pizzaon paper plates in the family room than to wait for the perfect moment or a "real" dinner party.Too often, the perfect moment never comes. Iron a fine-patterned tablecloth? Forget it. Polish thesilver? Who has time? Yet the loss of formality has its down side. T...
