X-mas and me

Yesterday, I bought an Ideal Home magazine special edition on X-mas. On the weekend, I bought several x-mas decorations. I've started doing lists about things to do for x-mas.

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?

Up untill this year, I've been the type of person to get extremely cross at all the x-mas stuff on display in October. 'It makes me sick - it's not even Halloween.' I'd huff. I've always enjoyed x-mas holidays - for me they are mellow affairs with no extended families to pile on the pressure. But I haven't had a tree for years - even for sprogs 1st x-mas, it didn't seem worth it and seemed more of a liablity with a baby who was using everything to pull himself up with.

Yet, now I'm getting so excited about Christmas this year and am starting to stockpile decorations for my budding collection (I will now start to have x-mas decorations in a box that we take out year after year - imagine!).

I think it's because this year is really the first year sprog will be consciously aware of x-mas and, as he will almost be 3 years old, hopefully won't attempt to pull down the tree.

We'll be able to make a paper chain together, decorate the tree and put the x-mas fairy on the top!

He'll enjoy the lights and reading the night before x-mas and watching x-mas films will be lovely.

So I'm a x-mas convert - but will I go so far as to make eleborate table setting displays for the x-mas dinner for the 3 of us? probably not but I might try their suggestions for displaying our cards with ribbon hanging down from the bookshelves.

China's Stolen Children

Last night I saw the most tragic documentary. It was about the numbers of children who are kidnapped and/or trafficked in China. They featured two distraught parents whose 5 year old had been kidnapped in broad daylight. Because of the one-child policy, people without boys are willing to pay traffickers who either find parents who want to sell their child (again because of fines imposed on parents who break the one-parent rule or who can't get a birth permit - i.e. because they are not married) or simply abduct children and sell them on. Apparently, 70,000 children in China are abducted this way.

It also featured two traffikers who were relaxed and obvisously didn't fear appearing on the film to talk about their horrible actions.

It just made me so sad. Anyway, I've donated some money to the film-makers who have set up a fund for parents in China who are looking for their abducted children. The link to the page to donate is below.

http://www.truevisiontv.com/china/index.htm