Festive Feelings

I haven't posted in a while... a variety of reasons, catching up with friends here after spending all of October on the move, and more recently as I haven't felt great in my own skin. Combination of dark evenings, lack of energy and being a wuss feeling sorry for myself. I went home this weekend for my Mum's birthday, we decorated the tree, I heard my nephew practising his songs for the High Babies Nativity in which he will be Joseph, I tortured my sister a little over her new beau and I spent time with my girl. All of this reminded me I have quite the charmed life.

Which brings me to things people are doing to spread goodwill and showing us how lucky we all really are.

Outside our office sat Donal, the loveliest guy ever, he had a bad set of circumstances that left him where he was. We would all give him a couple of coins a week (he needed 18euro a day for a hostel that he had to leave every morning at 9) One Christmas we clubbed together and got him a pair of boots some good socks and some long sleeves. Anne was best at remembering Donal, if there was new clothes around her house that her husband or family had no use for. I usually just contributed a couple of coins and a cup of tea and bar of milk chocolate lindt (he had a weakness for that chocolate) Our office is no longer there but some friends live nearby and I ask them to help him out if they see him.

Kids on the street break my heart, I usually try and give them a sandwich or cuppa, even if it means doubling back and being late by a min or two. There was one young boy I would see on Nassau St or around College Green, he was usually crouched low and crying, I stopped to talk to him a few times but I never got far, I would just come back with a hot chocolate or something else to drink. Almost every time I would stop to give a kid on the street food I would get a good reaction, that came out wrong, what I was trying to say is that I have only once had complaint from the person I was giving the food to.

I dunno what is the individual solution in Ireland is for this, a fellow blogger Sinead came up with this suggestion a while ago, so I wanted to put it back in here again, perhaps to start the conversation again. It was brought to my attention a few months ago but a young visitor that there were no/very very few homeless people on the streets in Amsterdam as compared to Dublin. This is true, I'm not sure why, although talking about it with some friends they have informed me that its a combination of better social policy and stricter control on the streets in Amsterdam. Cities outside of the big tourist centre have homelessness, its just they get moved on and sheltered more in Amsterdam so as not to interfere with the tourism.

Anyhow, back to others in the community doing great things to help their corner of the world and spread the feeling that we are very lucky indeed.

Firstly: The lovely Catherine came up with this wonderful book, written by the bloggers of Ireland. It’s now available to buy for €14, and €4.61 of this will go straight to Focus Ireland. Click here to order your copy! It comes with your own inner glow, and a great read to boot.

Secondly: Well this is actually two in one, Pat Phelan, telecoms genius and all round nice guy has been (and is still doing) Christmas Give-aways, check them out here. He's using the Give-aways to give great advertising to The Jack and Jill Foundation. The winner of the last one was Niall Harbison of ifoods.tv who very generously decided to re-raffle the very cool Nokia E63 he won. All money raised will go to the children in Crumlin Children's Hospital. So if you fancy a cool phone for the price of a raffle ticket (€5) while feeling the warm glow of helping someone out this Christmas go here and throw your hat in the ring.

Thirdly: My best mate Sadhbh is involved with some talented folks in voluntary Irish radio to raise money for the ISPCC by way of spreading Christmas Cheer... tune in here

Anyway.. there you go, hope the warm glow of the Christmas Season will reach you soon (if its not there already) and wrap you up in its festive embrace for a week or two.

Elf!