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Half term, Halloween, Bonfire Night, all marked, and now? Well now thoughts turn to Christmas. The messages have started already: "What would the kids like", "send your Christmas lists", "Shall we go see Santa?" I adore Christmas, always have, and now with young kids of my own, it’s even better. But with it? A huge serving of guilt. My kids are beyond lucky, they are in a home that is warm and furnished. They will go to bed on Christmas night, and all others, in a clean, safe place, in their own clothes. On Christmas night, as we close their bedroom doors, they will replay in their heads the toys they’ve had, the food they’ve eaten, the numerous treats they have had. They may be too young to realise how lucky that makes them, but I’m not. I know that not just miles from our home, but metres, there will be children going without. There will be kids who don’t get presents, who aren’t eating treats from morning til night, who don’t open one present and toss it to the side before grabbing another. There are kids watching Christmas films and reading Christmas books who think that a tree, a meal, a present are things you only get in a fiction novel. There are far, far, too many kids, a growing number, that are going without. It is not the fault of their parents or carers, who long to give the sort of Christmas every parent dreams of. They are families who desperately need help, and again, we here at the Western Mail are going to give it, through our annual toy appeal. The appeal started again this week, an idea borne three years ago out of someone mentioning in passing to me how many kids had nothing in Rhondda. In its first year we handed over 500 or so items, last year that tripled. We gave toys, gifts and books, we stocked the food shop at Canolfan Pentre so people had items for their cupboards, we made sure babies had nappies, wipes, and food. “We” means all of us, because we couldn’t have done it without you. Every year when we launch the campaign I worry, I worry that something will happen meaning we don’t get enough to help, and then the boxes start arriving and I panic a bit more. Should we have done more to help more? And this year is no different, so excuse my shameless pleas for help. This year we’re not just helping Canolfan Pentre in Rhondda, a charity who do so much in their local community. They provide services for people from babies to the elderly, a warm space, a warm meal, a helping hand, a place to get advice with no judgement. Quite similar to Noddfa, a community project with 25 years behind it in Caerau, in Bridgend. They also have a food pantry, so people can get items for a fraction of the cost. Last year, the staff at Canolfan Pentre told us how they had to sell individual toilet rolls now because the cost of a multipack for most people was too much, in case you thought that was a one off, Noddfa do that too. And our third charity is the DPJ Foundation, a charity I’ve known for a very long time, set up in memory of Daniel Picton-Jones by his widow Emma. It is a mental health charity which has the total respect of the agricultural community it mainly serves. They will distribute the items to families in rural areas, where poverty is, to some extent, hidden, but still as prevalent. The people they help are the very people who will be working now to raise turkeys and goose for your plates, who work all hours, in all weathers, to get the food you eat on Christmas Day, and every other day too. For many of those agricultural workers who are already worried about money, the addition of Christmas is too much to bear. Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire, Bridgend and Rhondda - all different areas but with one thing in common, there are children there who won’t, right now, get the Christmas they should. If you can help, you can buy from our Amazon Wishlist, or donate via GoFundMe and we’ll use donations to buy items for the appeal. If you work somewhere and can have a bake sale, or a collection, please do. If you can spare £1 or £1,000, it will be spent making sure that kids have something that it seems outrageous to say in 2025 - a smile on Christmas morning.
