A Challenge to everyone here.

Let's hear & see the enthusiasm group!Here's me jumping up and down with glee and singing Have a Holly Jolly Christmas! Oh by golly have a hol ly jol ly Christ mas this year! I didn't know I still had it!

I'd also like you to do this. But only because I want to see how many of you get moidered by crazy people. Natch.

Do we have to arrange their travel as well? Cos I don't think they'd appreciate having to make their own way there, it being 5-6 hours train ride away - You haven't thought this through, have you, Gale? Graham.

(Sorry, I'm feeling all smug and holy from giving a whole Pound to a Big Issue seller, and not even taking it cos it was therir last one (Harry Hill gag: "Well you can go home now"))

Do we have to arrange their travel as well? Cos I don't think they'd appreciate having to make their own way there, it being 5-6 hours train ride away.

You haven't thought this through, have you, Gale? Graham.

(Sorry, I'm feeling all smug and holy from giving a whole pound to a Big Issue seller, and not even taking it cos it was therir last one (Harry Hill gag: "Well you can go home now"))

FuXor.

(And the first one's the corrected one - Ay?)

Hi Graham... Do you live in the city? If you do, you can go to any church or food bank and ask who you might invite They would certainly have names or could get some for you.. There must be something close by even an elderly folks home? Use some imagination! What's to think through. Perhaps you'd be lucky enough to invite a family. Good luck & I hope you take the challenge.

I am usually a waitress at the Mayor's Christmas Dinner on Christmas Day, which is for elderly people who would otherwise be on their own.

It is quite neat, usually about two hundred people come to it and there is a choir that sings before dinner and we give all the ladies corsages and there are prizes and the mayor comes and gives a speech and all the old folk get tipsy on wine and sherry and ask you if you're 'Ngaire's girl' or 'Eva's grand-neice'.
It's kind of sad for me sometimes though, I mean it makes me kind of emotional and all.

Fancy telling all this to Ronan's poor cousin, you insensitive Godhead?

WE'RE the ones in crisis, not the mythical "2 other people"!

Hi Graham... Do you live in the city? If you do, you can go to any church or food bank and ask who you might invite

Ummm...Gale, this is a lovely sentiment but this is not 1786. You're likely to get murdered and robbed this way, and no reputable food bank will give you any names anyhow of someone to "invite over" to protect the people THEY are serving from insane murderers. Churches only help parishoners who can "prove" they've given to the church, so what's the point of going to help their list of people? They have money.

Just go bloody volunteer for fucks sake.

I'm sorry to be blunt cos like I said there's a lovely sentiment at heart but there's no chance it can go and these same places you are telling people to go to to get names (non-existant ones since a lot of food-kitchen-type places don't KEEP names of the people who come in) need volunteers very badly all year long.

When you folks get to be really old and lonely, would it make you happy to think nobody would even care enough to invite you to dinner because they'd be afraid that you'd kill them? Let's not be so shallow as to feel this way. Not one of us deserve to be destitute on Christmas day. I will be here after the Christmas Holidays in tact as I have the Lord beside me.

Hmm, this opens up a moral dilemma. I probably will be spending the dreaded day with some acquaintances, one of whom is REALLY going downhill. I don't know where they're living, or if they're actually living anywhere. Thing is, everybody's friends with the guy but he's such an out-of-control drunk that they're afraid of him showing up, but nobody wants to tell him not to. I've decided it's really the decision of the person who's house we're gathering it - the same house the guy used to share, before trashing it one too many times.

QUIETLY MY MIND ROTATED IN THE COSMOS, THOUGHTS THUNDERING THROUGH LIKE QUARKS THROUGH THE ATOM. I SEE IN THE DISTANCE THE ENVELOPE OF PURE REASON AND THE DELIGHT IS CANCELLED ON THE COVER. WITHOUT NOTICE, I FILE A LEGAL BREIF WITH THE INTERGALATIC CROQET COUNCIL TO ELIMINATE BENNY HILL.

marcello you have achieved pure cunt-tacular lift off.

"and the starving and homeless shall envy the bereaved."

the real 'challenge to everyone here' (me at least) is to try to not tell marcello to fuck off in practically every thread nowadays.

Now you know how I feel, sweetie. :-)

I don't mean this in a mean way, btw. Hence the smiley.

Hi Rainy :) I know exactly how you feel because I have worked at an elderly folks home, and just loved it.. You can get to be like family. Gosh after I gave up working there and went back for visits, I always got many hugs :) I loved every minute.

come on nicole, i was never THAT bad. and at least i posted stupid shit under my own name, ";-)".

But I do post stupid sthiit under my own name, I just like other names too. What haven't I posted that hasn't been stupid, I ask you?

you're drunk right now aren't you.

Not really, or I wouldn't be writing a paper. Maybe sora.

DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE TELL ME HOW I SHOULD FUCKING FEEL ABOUT BEING LONELY. YOU KNOW FUCK ALL. YOUR GOD IS USELESS AND POINTLESS.

AS FOR FUCKING PINKY AND PERKY, JUST GET UP AND FUCKING DO SOMETHING WITH YOUR LIVES INSTEAD OF POSTING YOUR CRAPPY FUCKING WHINGES ABOUT OH I HATE MY JOB I HATE MY BOSS I HAVE EATING DISORDERS I WANT TO KILL MYSELF BECAUSE YOU HAVEN'T GOT THE FUCKING GUTS TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT YOUR SITUATION EXCEPT MAKE STUPID GAGS ABOUT AUSCHWITZ AND WONDERING WHY YOU CAN'T GET ON WITH PEOPLE. HUMANITY/SUFFERING IS NOT A FUCKING LEAGUE TABLE SO DON'T FUCKING PREACH TO ME. AND DON'T HAVE THE FUCKING AUDACITY TO ACCUSE ME OF USING MY OWN SUFFERING AS A CRUTCH. SORT YOUR OWN SHIT OUT FIRST.

The challenge is to venture out and find 2 people who are less fortunate than yourselves, and invite them for Christmas dinner

Many people will be spending Christmas with their families. Of course, this leads to an incredible amount of complacency or even smugness. The organisation is taken care of by a single individual or pair of individuals (usually parents, mainly mothers). Much as we might like to think that we can avoid this, there always be times when we screw up and fail to take account of the fact that there are people with no family and people who don't get on with their folks. The best that we can do is to try to be as sensitive as possible and apologise on those occasions when we don't succeed in doing this.

To my mind, there is nothing wrong with helping people out indirectly through giving to charity. I don't have much truck with the idea that this is somehow sub-standard, e.g. that people who help out in soup kitchens are somehow more worthy by dint of their hands-on approach than those of us who simply write a cheque, buy a Big Issue or put some money in a Salvation Army tin. People have different talents, how they choose to spend their time is their own business. We all do what we can and the number of people who are completely selfish and never do anything charitable are far fewer than the religious fundamentalists and other interfering busy-bodies would have us believe.

Gale's main mistake is to suggest that we try to help out strangers by inviting them to Christmas lunch. Given her religious convictions, maybe she is taking the Parable of the Great Feast a little too literally. My mother used to invite an elderly lady to Christmas dinner whom she knew would be alone otherwise, but this person was an old friend, not a stranger. Quite apart from the practical considerations which Ally and Graham have detailed above, it is hardly fair on the other people round the Chritsmas dinner table if a complete stranger is invited, even if the person's need is very great. I have heard so many tales this year when people have described their shyness in the presence of someone they didn't know. It is hardly right to inflict this feeling of unease at Christmas, of all times.

We must all respect Marcello's position in this difficult time and allow him to grieve in his own way. I will never be able to fully understand what he is going through, but I do at least have an inkling, seeing as my brother-in-law took his own life in December 1999. My sister was helped out enormously by the close-knit community in her small Hertfordshire village. For obvious reasons, Christmas is tinged with sadness for me. Perhaps it always will be.

I'm sure this is not what Gale had in mind when she posted her Christmas Challenge.

seeing as you seem to know the mind of Gale so well, Tim, what is your take on what she meant?

for FUCKS SAKE. if i want to see people tear strips off each other i will go home and watch the jerry Springer show. give it a rest ALL OF YOU.

Sorry Mark, I was talking about the flame wars, not your post.

marcello if you want to go about the rest of your life with as little dignity as possible, by all means. but take it somewhere else. gale - of all people - doesn't deserve this.

and mark, as for "respecting marcello in his time of blah blah blah"...marcello was given a VERY wide birth @ silly old ilx for his grief. he has since abused that at every step of the way. so until he begins to show a modicum of respect for everyone else (like, gale, who i have seen having nothing but kind and good things to say about everyone on this board - if not always well intentioned) well, fuck that...the kid gloves are off. no one "said" anything that marcello said above. like i said, he can take it somewhere else. i - for one - am not going to play his little games so he can get his cathartic little hardon by winding everyone up and then, if people take him to task or - gasp, just ignore him! - he can whine and moan and say he was "just joking." again, fuck that. and because i don't want to be disrespectful to gale, that's all i'm going to say on this thread.

no berth can ever be wide enough Jess. I can only assume you have never lost anyone close to you.

wow mark! yr a genius! apparently you havent been paying attention to the DOZEN + OTHER THREADS that this has seemed to infect over the last four months, especially the one where i said i would no long talk about my own loss of last year in relation to marcello or on ilx period. but hey, fuck you too, and thanks for playing.

(jess went through exactly the same thing as marcello a few months ago, mark)

oy. mark s + jess = post at the same time = jess' cunty post gets there first. sorry, sorry. i *am* letting this get to me, and that's why i'm done with this.

I can't be expected to read every single thread on every single topic...I've got work to do. Thanks for pointing this out, though, Mark S.

Oooh, off to the water-cooler then to CHILL, Mr. Snooty.

Hi Marcello, I'm sorry that you got so upset. My thread was to just to offer a chance for you to help a couple of people who otherwise be alone. I don't care if they are your next door neighbors. This to me isn't impossible to achieve. I'm sorry Marcello.

I hope you don't take this wrong folks, I do help others year round a couple a few at a time. My Mom & I are like this by nature. In fact my grandma always told my mother that she'd never be a pin above a begger. She was right. We aren't rich by a long shot. I have lived below pov. all my life and I still find a way with God's help to manage. As my Mom has told me that no one can do anything by themselves. I guess we do very well. I care for my Mom at home as well so I guess you must have wondered how I do it. It took awhile for me to what I had to with God's help. I guess this is what I'll always do. ... I have no regrets. Thanks folks. :)

Dear Gale, I'm sorry if I went off like a rocket about your original post. I just wanted to point out that there are many of us here who are "alone" and who have lost people, or (in Ronan's case) about to lose people who were/are very close to us. With the best will in the world I don't think it's wise to assume that we all have spaces in our hearts for other people whom we do not directly know - the amount of charity in some cases is exceeded by the tumult within an individual.

The way it's working for me, Gale, is that I'm sort of being "taken in" this Xmas in terms of staying with my mother in Scotland over the holidays; otherwise I myself would be alone, and given recent circumstances that would be completely unbearable. So the charity is being extended to me but unfortunately I in turn have little, if any, to offer because my whole current outlook/perspective on life is dominated by the need to sort my own life out, because if I can't do that I won't be in a position to help anyone else.

So I'm really sorry I went off the boil, Gale. I hope you can forgive me.

Hi Mark H, How do you really know that monies donated to charities go directly to the people who need it? Have you heard of elderly having to eat pet food? Well I would personally rather see where the help & quality of help is going is all.( Not that I am saying ALL organizations are bad, because they aren't.

I haven't heard of elderly eating pet food, no.

Despite already having arranged for there to be 9 of us at Xmas dinner my mum keeps saying 'would any of your friends like to come too Emma?', this is most bizarre and unprecedented, maybe she doesn't believe I have any and wants cast iron evidence.

I think inviting my grandpa round and saving him from dining on cat food is sufficient charity for one family for one year.

Hi All :) The real object of this challenge was to get people together. If say one or more of YOU were going to be alone, that perhaps you could invite a person or two who were also going to be alone as well to join you. Folks with a lot of family is a different story (Emma) We do what we can. Yes I have heard of poor elderly having to eat pet food because when they paid their essiencials rent & heat they had nothing remaining for food.Pet food was the least expensive.

What's the big paranoia about being alone? I'd love a taster of what that's like. Where did I put that Slipknot cd.

You can't fool me you big teddybear! What's skipnotCD? Hugs :)

If you can't invite people, then perhaps you could 'adopt' a family for xmas by buying food for them so that they can have their own xmas dinner. We did this at work. Read this letter:

"My name is [name of girl]. I am 12 years old. My sister is 15 years old. I have 3 more sisters, [names of sisters]. And Santa Clause, my mother's name is [...]. She is 41 years old. And my father's name is [...]. He is 66 years old. And Santa we have my cousin's kids - [...] is 7, [...] is 6, [...] is 5. Belt buckle she left bruises on they body and they back and burned them with a hot iron and left them with a hot iron in the house all alone. And DCFS place them in our home. My mother and father cannot take care of us. She is very sickly. My father had two heart attack. And Santa it is so hard to feed us. Sometime we eat water and bread. Santa Claus we is crying out for some help. Santa Clause please and pretty please would you make our dream come true. My mother and father can not do it for us. We is very hungry. God bless Santa Clause we love you. To Santa please help us please. We is calling on God in you. I know you is God child. And god will work through you for us. We love you Santa Claus and God. Love you too."

food banks have so much food , an excess really,in october and december. Donate to tehm in july when they have almost nothing in the larder .

In the county where my family lives, where there is a serious recession going on, the charities are reporting shortfalls and they are begging for food donations, etc. I think it's because people have less to give and more people are in need. The county doesn't have the money to help everyone who is out of a job. This isn't a normal year, so check with your local charities.

Hi Kerry I find your post a little misplaced but the idea is a very good one. A lady & hubby for our town has rented our large Church basement to put on a beautiful. supper for friends relatives and anyone else who would care to come( ABSOLUTELY FREE OF CHARGE!) Fof eveyone just to get together. I think it's a beautiful thing to do! Mind you I couldn't have rented the hall but I am going to volunteer the cleanup! We have a foodbank in town for anyone who finds themselves in destitute times. P.S. God comes before Santa!)