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.

YANBU
I am sending two.

Yes Kitty esp if it is pink and driven whilst using a mobile phone

Are you talking Katie Pricey here?

yeah - sorry - she's persona non grata here isn't she

I was once reading an article about a person who had gone to be a charity worker overseas and he was questioning whether aid is always a good idea after what he had seen. The example he gave was about mosquito nets actually. He met a man who had had his own small business making mosquito nets and he employed 10 people. Then in came some charity or other and gave all the people in the surrounding area free nets which immediately put him out of business, plus his workers and the families they were all supporting. It also meant that in the future when people wanted nets there was nowhere for them to go, so in the long run they were actually worse off too. Makes you think doesn't it?

I expect you can pick many acts of charity to bits if you try hard enough. You can question whether the shoeboxes are really the best way to help poor children (and send them or not, it's up to you), but I can't help feeling it is unfair to question the motives of the people running the charities. They are getting off their backsides and doing what they believe is a good thing, they must believe that mustn't they? I mean, if they are really going to all the enormous effort of collecting, transporting and distributing the boxes solely in the hope that they will be 'converting' a few children then I can't really see that it would be worth it. And what if they do convert some people? They are doing it by showing kindness, not by threats and violence!

I'm not particularly religious myself by the way. In the words of Rik in The Young Ones "I don't have to go to church, I'm C of E".