Card Sharp

So Penguin asked me for five top tips for good deeds at Christmas. Despite having done my year of good deeds, I am slightly leery setting myself up as any moral authority on what is and is not a good deed (particularly bearing in mind I am a journalist and as Lord Leveson will point out tomorrow journalists have no kind of moral authority at all.) Still bearing in mind I am a firm believer in a free press, my first top tip for doing good at Christmas is:

"Buy charity cards direct from a charity. Every year you say you will, then your eye gets caught on that snowy, sparkly woodland in the department store. Put your hands up and step away from the robin."

And since I am writing about good deeds for Christmas I am going to have to in all conscience give them a go and do them myself.(Makes hand into gunshape and holds finger-barrel to own head.) Yesterday I duly went online and ordered 100 charity Christmas cards and today 60 of them arrived.

Anyone who knows me stand by your beds (doubtless already covered in your festive quilt and festooned with sparkling pointsettia lights.) The likelihood is you will soon be in receipt of a Giotto nativity from Arthritis Research UK; glittery snowdrops from Cancer Research; a leafless winter's tree (hopefully not an ash) from Save the Children; or this one called "Christmas Post" from Action for Children.

Whatsmore I am, in one fell swoop, helping "reduce the pain and disability for the one in six people including children, in the UK who are living with this debilitating condition (of arthritis)", helping "save children's lives...fight for their rights...fulfil their potential" and beating cancer. And I haven't even written the damn cards yet. Yeah. How about that?

My husband looked a little confused at the delivery of the Christmas cards. This is because he is normally the one who writes them. In fact normally I never send a Christmas card. Not one. I haven't for years. Maybe one in a blue moon to an aged aunty but that is it. (Grits teeth and reaches for address book).

Seriously. Is that the time?

Cor blimey.Where does life go? This is an official announcement I am coming back to blogging (if blogging will have me). Tomorrow my kids run in the mini and junior Great North Run, so I thought I would post my diary entry for this time last year ... Saturday 17th September 2011 Watching them run inspires me. Not just my kids - all of them: those grinning, tiny, pink-winged fairies running alongside a huffing, puffing Daddy; cowgirls in glittering stetsons; three-legged teenage racers their arms wrapped around one another, a paper explanation pinned to one girl’s teeshirt “I’m doing this for my aunty”. Can that aunty see her do this? Is she proud? And if she can’t, I’ll be proud on her behalf. Proud too of those kids in wheelchairs pushed up steep banks by gritty mums and dads – faces ablaze with sweat and loyalty: a teenage boy with muscular dystrophy surrounded by his family urging him on, willing him on, as he leaned into his walking frame, frail legs twisted under him, moving on and on to the finish line. The generosity, the energy, the purity of the young. Their willingness to own up to their love; their readiness to struggle, to climb the hills and make it to the end for us. This week my children – all those children – they did enough.