To deliberately infuriate and annoy mumsnetters with this statement.

[bubbleOseven]

I am sending a Christmas Shoe Box this year.

So fuck you.

And the horse you rode in on.

cupcakes, I think you are firing at the wrong target. The big issue here is a cause which actually uses gifts for purposes that are not clear to the original giver. That's bad anyway, but when the giver is a child, it is extraordinary.

But it IS the same charity, with the same ideals and aims. Just because they toned it down a bit for the UK doesn't mean shit. Its a worldwide "charity" headed by the Islamaphobe Franklin Graham (son of Billy) who said "Every box packer is a missionary".

You want to do it, fine. But that is who you are supporting.

Well, maybe I will vent my spleen at S.P if it turns out that they are effectively excluding people who do not convert. But I reserve the right to be angry/upset with certain posters. If I give to a charity in good faith I do not expect to be told that I am doing it for a "personal thrill". That offends me.

couldn't give a fuck about your shoe boxes, whether they are christmas ones or not.

I called people sanctimonious arses for trying to start some kind of one upmanship wrt giving to charity.

"Oh you give a christmas box, do you? Well, I give a mosquito net/goat/lentil bed which is much better environmentally and I can sleep soundly in my bed at night."

Anyone who bleats that their charitable act is better than another persons is an arse. A big, fat, sweaty, hairy arse.

Rude enough for you?

I would never berate an individual for "making different choices". I would berate them for telling others that their choices are shite, which is what some of you have being doing.

cupcakes, if someone is ripping you off, and someone else points it out, do you get angry with the ripper or the pointer?

No Stewie - you need to get a grip.

"underhand techniques of conversion" - its a bible story in a box full of other, probably more interesting, things. Faith isn't a virus. You don't catch it. You're either interested or you're not. Can't see how a Christian charity giving info about what they believe (which I am certain they all do to some extent) is suddenly so controversial.

Intolerance of others beliefs is very devisive. Learning about other faiths is surely a good thing?

The charity that I support doesn't do that.
However I have met modern day "missionaries". They do a huge amount of good. I think they would say that they are "spreading the word of God" rather than converting the heathens.
Once again I'll say that you can only preach to those that want to listen. You can't convert someone that doesn't want to be.

It's not that anyone is saying your choice is shit. It's just misguided.

Yes, it's lovely to imagine some poor child smiling broadly when being given a box of toys - even if it does come with a bible/hymn sheet/sign up for for church - but look at it from a different point of view....

Imagine same child sat in a hospital, or even a mud hut playing with your box of gifts while his mother dies of AIDS or his brother dies of dysentery or starves to death because of a hare lip/because there's no food. What if it's the child with the box who's poorly? What if what's making him ill could be cured with a simple jab?

Your box of toys might take his mind off it for a little while. The obligatory church visits might convince him he's/his loved one is going to a better place.

But that fiver you spent on box of tat might have cured his loved one if donated to Oxfam or Medicine sans frontiers which is surely a present he'd appreciate more.

I lived in a country where these shoeboxes were given out. I have to say that I don't know which charity they were from - but although they were given out by a local church (who received them from the charity) - all the children in the area known to the people in the church got them - regardless of whether they were christian or not. There was no coercion into Bible classes or Sunday school.

I'm not ashamed to say that I got very chiked up when I saw how happy the children and young people were who received them.

I donate to Oxfam and have bought mosquito nets in the past and will do so again, so it's not either or as far as I am concerned.

I expect someone will be along shortly to tell me why donating to Oxfam is funding Mugabe's prostitute addiction.

Also I fill my box with lovely things. I don't consider pencils, drawing books, knitted hats/gloves, toothbrush, toothpaste and soap to be tat or "shit trinkets". I send items that I would give to my own child quite happily.

oops - *choked up

I never give these. They are not given to the children withouth conditions.
I've told the school why.

From the SPI website :"One child whose heart was touched was Cecilia, a 13-year-old Mexican girl suffering from a malignant tumor behind her eye. She heard the Gospel during the gift distribution and immediately accepted Jesus Christ as her Savior.

Two days later, her sickness put Cecilia in the hospital. She asked her parents to bring her the doll and teddy bear from her shoe box, ?so I can take them to heaven with me.? Cecilia said she had lived the most wonderful day of her life on the day she got the box and found Jesus. Cecilia is in heaven now, but through her witness, her parents and grandparents have become believers."

Bleugh. I am not a Christian and I don't want any gifts my child gives to another child responsible in any way for their conversion.

Fucks sake cupcakes, its not a matter of everyones choice is equal blah blah blah. Its not about one-upmanship with giving. Its letting people know the FACTS about the underhand techniques this so called charity uses.

Its like when protestants set up soup kitchens in Ireland during the famine. You only got fed if you converted to CofE. If you stayed catholic you could starve.

Yes. How intolerable to give such comfort to those dying and those grieving for them

Sounds a bit like church schools. No places for the poor and needy only christians need apply.

IT'S SEPTEMBER.