Santa wants to know what you are doing on Monday 18th December.

Santa wants to know what you are doing on Monday 18th December. He has asked me to write a special blog page for him today.

Before I do that I just have to tell you all that yesterday's blog hit an all-time record. No fewer than 335 people read the page. I find that so exciting. THANK YOU all for your support.

Let's have a piece of music shall we.

In two days time it will be ADVENT. Shops are selling advent calendars for children and for we grown up children. You can even buy an advent calendar for your pets. OurRebekah will be running a special Advent Calendar for families who have a child sick in hospital, for families who are staying in Ronald McDonald Houses all round the world.

This is part of our Secret Santa project. There is still room on Santa's sleigh for anyone who has not yet added a gift to do so, but without any question at all this project is already a resounding success.

So many wonderful people have carefully selected gifts of love which are soon to be loaded on Santa's Sleigh to make a pre-Christmas visit to Ronald McDonald House in Birmingham. The biggest UK house within Ronald McDonald Houses UK, this wonderful place right in the centre of Britain's Second City lovingly cares for families who have a child sick in Birmingham's Childrens' Hospital. Families come from all over the country for their little boy or little girl to receive specialist treatment in Brum.

Ronald McDonald House in Birmingham likes to call itself The House That Love Built. OurRebekah is re-branding the house THE MANSION OF LOVE.

As you walk around the house it spits love out at you from every wall in every room.

Later today Amazon is delivering a parcel to my home, it is being delivered by a carrier and I am able to track it on-line. All very sophisticated, all very efficient. However, it does not need any love to deliver this parcel does it ?

The gifts on Santa's Sleigh were purchased with love. They have all been wrapped not only in festive paper but also we love. No matter how efficient and customer focused a commercial carrier may be we can not let the gifts be delivered to Birmingham without their being taken to the families with love - OUR LOVE.

We are going to turn David's car into Santa's Sleigh. We will pack the gifts into the boot and on to the back seat then point the car up the M1. We will change motorways and take the M6 to Brum then allow the Sat Nav to guide us to Ronald McDonald House. Do you think Santa has a Sat Nav on his sleigh ?

David's car has not one but two CD players. Both will be working overtime all the way on the 74 mile drive as  we listen to and sing along to festive music. Route Planner on the AA website says it will take 90 minutes to complete the journey, that could be a little bit ambitious !  Better allow two hours.

David will dress up as Santa and his car as Rudolph. With so many gifts of love to deliver Santa needs some helpers.

Normally the car can easily fit in four passengers but with so many parcels to deliver some are going to have to sit on the seats. There will be room for two, perhaps three helpers. Would you like to be one ?

We will leave Milton Keynes aka The North Pole at eleven o'clock. That should see us at Ronald McDonald House for 1pm.

The last thing we want to do is to disrupt the work of the house. We will, therefore, deliver the goods, stay long enough to be polite then be on our way.

Before we head back home David wants to take his helpers out for lunch.

We have another project running to support Ronald McDonald House in Birmingham. This project seeks to republish three of David's books with royalties from sales being given to the house. This project, Books4Birmingham, will be the main focus of OurRebekah between January and June next year.

One of those books is David's teenage autobiography telling of the two years he spent working in a giant Birmingham department store, Lewis's Limited. Lewis's is long gone but the building remains. On the ground floor, located right where the staff entrance was, where David and two thousand other members of staff entered and left work each day is a branch of Weatherspoons.

David will take all of his helpers there for lunch.

We need to be back on the road and heading south before the scary traffic starts to build up.  If we can leave by half past three we should be back in Milton Keynes by five (ish).

So what are you doing on Monday 18th December ?  Would you like to be an OurRebekah Ambassador of Love and one of Santa's Little Helpers ?

Drop David an email: dashford566@gmail.com or drop him a message on Facebook