Will you join me? Please?

It's that time of year again.

October.

Almost Christmas.

Yes, really.

It doesn't just mean that Christmas shopping for those nearest and dearest to us is around the corner, but also time to give a little extra thought to those further away.

Each year our family supports Operation Christmas Child by Samaritan's Purse. Operation Christmas Child is a long running appeal where children who have never known the joy of receiving a gift at Christmas are given a shoebox filled with gifts.

The gifts don't have to be expensive. They don't have to be anything flashy or over the top. But they'll be appreciated. Wholly, lovingly and joyfully appreciated.

Like this...

The boxes needn't cost much to put together. Here are a few ideas of what you could include:

• Soap


• Flannel


• Toothpaste


• Toothbrush


• Hairbrush


• Colouring pencils


• Colouring book


• Christmas card from you and your family


• A small toy such as a yoyo or ball.
  

See, it doesn't have to cost much to makes a child feel loved and special and happy. How many of those items on the list do we take for granted? And yes, something as simple as a bar of soap does make a difference. If you're creative you can even knit something for them.

It's not just for those of us in the UK either. Samaritan's Purse has offices all over the world. Here is a list to make things easy for you ;-)

Samaritan's Purse UK or you can go straight to the UK Operation Christmas Child site instead. You can drop off your boxes at various collection points (details on the website) between the 1st and 18th November.

If you are in the US you can go to Samaritan's Purse here. You can drop your boxes off between the 16th and 23rd November and find your drop off locations here. If you can't put a box together you can also make a donation for one instead.

Australia and New Zealand Samaritan's Purse can be found here, Canada is here, and then there's Germany, Ireland, Netherlands and Hong Kong.

There are lots of ways we can help no matter where we are the the world. I want us bloggers (and readers and lurkers... I know who you are and will mention no names) to do what we can and see how much of a difference we can make. I know that this is also something my children love to do and look forward to each year.

What can we do?

We can...

1. Make up a shoebox gift, or two, or three, or four... you get the picture.


2. If you can't or don't want to you can donate.


3. Knit something. If you aren't putting together a box but want to knit something on the site for someone else to put in the box let me know and we'll arrange it.


4. Put up a poster, leave leaflets where they'll be seen, talk about it, volunteer. Details on all these things can be found on the websites above, as can resources you can use.


5. Blog about it and add yourself to McLinky so we can come visit you. Put a banner on your site. Link to this post.

Remember, the more people we tell the more boxes we can send and that means more children will have a Christmas to remember. Just one Christmas, that's all they ask.

How many boxes can we send?