It’s that time of year again. I can barely contain my excitement. My mind working overtime to come up with this years plan.

I wrote to you last year about 30 days of giving.

Don’t tell me you don’t remember! 

‘The idea is to give a gift to someone every day for 30 days. It started 15 years ago when, struggling with my mental health and the implications of a life-changing chronic illness, I found myself lost and could find no way out. Giving a gift to someone every day for 30 days gave me something to focus on. I love a project and you know I love a list so, 30 days of giving began.

The rules to this are simple – from the 21^st of November to the 21^st of December you give a gift every day for 30 days. (you can choose your own days, but I wanted to mark the Winter Solstice.)’

It doesn’t have to be a big gift – though if you wanna send me something go ahead.

For the past few years, I’ve sent postcards and letters – something wee in the post to cheer up a friend or remind them why they moved so far away from me. (That’s not stalking, right?)

Some years I’ve baked, sharing biscuits with friends and neighbours but after the apple sharing incidents I’m pretty sure the neighbours are still avoiding me. Is it weird to turn up, unannounced on someone’s door and force them to take a tray of homemade custard creams?

Often it is the weirdness that stops me. Or my worrying that its weird, or that I look like a nutter.

I mean I know I am weird, that’s a given, but it’s hard to stand under someone suspicious gaze, holding a tray of baked goods.

Maybe that’s the point. In all good quests there are dragons to slay (don’t tell Brian I said that, pet dragons get a bit touchy when you mention slaying and I’ve only just covered up the scorch marks from last time.)

My point was that in all good quests there are obstacles to overcome and maybe mine is accepting my weirdness and doing it anyway.  – I should make that into a slogan.

I have made up arbitrary rules.

Each day needs a new recipient.

No repeating gifts

No mass posting of letters or postcards – each card needs it’s own daily trip to the post-box.

One year I decided there’d be no planning, each days gift had to be spontaneous. To be honest that was a nightmare of stress and anxiety and might have contributed to my reputation for weirdness as, wild-eyed with panic, I grabbed complete strangers and forced a gift upon them.

Another year I gave away something I owned everyday for 30 days.  They call that decluttering now but back then it was crazy. And I couldn’t just give away old tat – I thought carefully about what each person would like – though the used Hamster cage was a stretch. (To be fair the recipient was thrilled.)

Then there was the year my gift was to give a complement to a complete stranger every day – slightly unrealistic for a woman who was mostly housebound.

This year I am doing a mash up of all the things I love to give. Little gifts of handmade soaps and oils, homemade cakes and bread, and of course letters and postcards. Who doesn’t like happy post?

I’d love to send you something too, so this year I am planning to post something every day for 30 days.

That’s not a gift, that’s a curse, I hear you mutter. But at least you avoid being chased down the street by a middle-aged woman waving homemade Bara Brith.

Happy Holidays!