The Bub in the Belly

Four days to Christmas, yabba dabba doo!

The next few days will be spent wrapping and delivering gifts, stocking the fridge, tidying up the house for our Christmas houseguests and issuing season's greetings. We will also be preparing Ryan's Christmas gift. Richard came up with a fabulous idea for it (I'll disclose what it is only after it's done, just in case it doesn't work out).

I was reading the newspaper yesterday and there was a report on The Boys' Brigade Sharity Gift Box 2009 . This programme aims to help the less fortunate by collecting food items for them and fulfilling their Christmas wishes. While monetary donations are always welcome, the main focus of the programme is to encourage donors to go beyond purely financial giving. Instead they are challenged to make the extra effort to buy gifts for the less privileged. The intended beneficiary will write his wish down on a tag and these tags are placed at "Wish Trees" at specified locations. The donors pick up a tag and shop for the item wished for. The donors can also buy basic food and household items and deposit these with the Boys' Brigade. The programme has been running for 21 years now and I think it is a wonderful way to help others and to promote community spirit.

Reading the report, what struck me most deeply was that several of the elderly beneficiaries had wished for a saucepan. Can you imagine that? A saucepan. Hopefully with a lid. To cook their noodles or their porridge or their curries. A saucepan for Christmas! When other people are dreaming of luxuries, these people are wishing for saucepans. I felt like carting all my pots and pans, all under-utilised, down to the Boys' Brigade.

These are doses of reality that put things in perspective for me. Whatever I may want for Christmas, ultimately I have all that I need and I'm grateful for that.