Ho Ho, How Proud...

Yes, I know it's still only November, but when you've got school-age children, Christmas preparations start early.

Daughter of Mine came home from school on Monday with group homework - a three-week project to plan and implement innovative and enterprising ways to grow her team's £15 budget to fundraise for charity. So this evening, she's embarked, with a friend, on a Christmas card making spree.

With the blessing of the local parish priest (she emailed him last night - oh, how times change!), she will be selling her wares, along with home-made cakes, at the family service at the beginning of December. The money raised by all the teams, plus the original £15 budget per team given by the school for materials, will be used to buy gifts for the CAFOD World Gifts appeal.

So if Christmas preparations have to start in November or earlier, I'd rather they were all gestures like this.