Yuletide Message

Hello everyone!
We haven't sent lots of cards this year - a pack of ten charity cards costs nearly £4 so 40p each, add on the stamp and every card we send costs the best part of a quid. Even the years I have made cards we've still spent a fortune, and the charities get maybe 10p each time. So this year, we've dramatically cut the number we've sent, and we will just give all the money to Breast Cancer Care (who have helped me) and the RNLI (who we hope we'll never need to call, but some of our friends have!).
So, Yuletide Blessings and Merry Christmas to all our friends and loved ones, and the space we've left on your mantlepiece has helped to do some good!

And in the meantime, here's a message from a friend, who gave me these wise words a couple of years ago - I think it bears a revisit.

I don't generally go in for moral lectures, but this one sort of caught me a bit - anyway, here it is...

A Personal Appeal...

As someone who has experienced sleeping rough, please spare a thought this Christmas as you tuck into your hot meal and open that pair of socks from Auntie Mildred that you loathe.

• Look through your cupboards, is it filled with tins that you haven’t used, probably won’t. Then donate them to your local soup kitchen.
• Got old sleeping bags, there are plenty of homeless charities and soup kitchens who would appreciate them and could pass them to someone for whom that warmth could save their lives.
• Smile and wish them merry christmas, just because they are homeless doesn’t mean they aren’t people anymore. Sometimes all it takes is a bit of human contact to give someone hope again.

Don’t just think of the homeless freezing in the cold, think a little closer to home too. Have you seen your elderly relatives lately? Maybe you should, they might need a light bulb changing, a heater fixing or just a chat.
How about the little old man in the bungalow at the end of the road? Smile, say hello next time you see him. Behind his door he might be sitting in one small room next to a single heater, cold and worried about the money he doesn’t have. While you eat your turkey, he might be eating a cold sandwich because he can’t afford the gas bill with the price hikes. If you got to know him, well then it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to pop over christmas day with a hot plate of christmas dinner and a smile. You might just make someone's christmas a merry one.