Shoe Boxes v Handbags

Feeling pink? Fly-the-flag bag

 I was listening to the radio the other day - or at least, it was on in some shop.
They were discussing moral issues.
To be precise, they were discussing a handbag.
Apparently it cost 18,000 euros.

That is one heck of a lot of handbag.- or possibly just one heck of a lot of euros.

Mercifully, for the state of my sanity, the overall consensus was that it would be obscene to spend 18,000 on a handbag. Even if you had it to spare. Or even 9,000. Or even 4,500 - or - well, you're getting my drift.

How much is it permissible to spend on a handbag?
I don't know, and you're talking to someone who is known to fall for handbags on a regular basis here.

Thrilling pink straw bag, bought in a French supermarket

In fact my darling son has taken to walking into a well known purveyor of such choice items and buying the glitziest, prettiest handbag he can see every birthday or Christmas time, bless his cotton socks. (There's nothing like bringing them up to REALLY understand how women tick!)

Sometimes he buys me bags that are even more grown-up than I am

But 18,000?
OK - lets get the gloves off here. Forget 18,000. I have spent most of my life being totally broke, so obviously my sights are a good bit lower than most. But even so.
I would have serious difficulty in coping with a handbag that cost 1,000 - let alone 18.
Diamond encrustations notwithstanding.

Diamond encrustations, as you can see. It came in at a tad under the 18,000.

I'd find myself looking at it and mentally stacking up all the other stuff it could have bought, alongside its glamorous gorgeousness. I'd end up not using it, because it bugged me, somewhere deep down inside.
And that really would be a waste.

Maybe that all sounds a bit high-horseish. It probably does.
But the reason it has sprung to mind today is that I am surrounded, in my rather unkempt kitchen, by glittery pencils and glitzy stickers, and novelty rubbers and pretty little notebooks. By pencil cases and fun-socks, hair ties and wondrous marbles.

I don't know what bit of Christmas turns you on the most - if you celebrate Christmas in any shape or form - but when my kids were young, and indeed, when I was young myself, the very, very best bit of Christmas was the stocking that Father Christmas left at the end of the bed. It wasn't a pillowcase, or anything gross like that, just a large stocking stuffed with all manner of little, joyful, crazily-exciting bits and bobs. And of course, being a girl, the super-best bits were always very colourful and glittery.

You're probably picking up on the glittery, sequinned theme at this stage

And when I finally grew up (well, sort of grew up), it gave me more pleasure than anything else to fill those stockings for my kids, and to watch their faces on Christmas morning as they opened them while we all sat around eating breakfast by the fire and the Christmas tree. Well - I ate the breakfast, probably, knowing me - and they opened their stockings and devoured the edible bits.

I'll be frank - I'm not above putting stockings together for them even now, if they are able to get home for Christmas - but this morning I'm putting together Christmas stocking 'Shoe Boxes' to be sent to 2-14 year olds abroad who otherwise won't get a present. All I can say is, if it gives each of them - any of them - as much pleasure to open as it has given me to put together, wow - RESULT! And some.

The question going round in the back of my mind as I'm tying up little parcels of stick-on jewels is this: how many Shoe Boxes could you make for 18,000?

Total joy