Thoughts on Christmas gifts and chickens

There's a lot of debate about Christmas gifts in the media at the moment. It usually starts in November when some disgruntled columnist or other starts bemoaning the fact that they need to start stocking up on gifts, swiftly followed by various "How to Regift" guides and a couple of (rather sexist) pieces on how rubbish men are at picking gifts and rounded off with a couple of trailing columns on what was received and how people would rather have had anything other than what they actually got. I've even read a few recently that complain about people using companies like Send a Cow rather than buying "proper" gifts. The whole thing seems a bit Bah, Humbug to me - whatever happened to the thought being what mattered? Although I can see their point on the charity farm animal farm front. One of my friends bought a flock of chickens in Africa in her father's name and said he got genuinely upset when, in response to his joyful question about when the chickens were arriving, she explained that the chickens weren't for him but for charity. On the up side, after seeing him get so excited about the idea of owning poultry, she knows what would make his year this Christmas! What father wouldn't want a Box o' Chickens during the festive season? I'm particularly fond of the Eglu runs. You buy the run, which comes with a two free "starter" chickens, and set it up in your garden. Simply bung in your free chickens, chuck some grain at them on a regular basis and voila! Fresh and organic eggs for life. Now I just need to convince the Boyfriend that one of these in our kitchen would be a good, rather than weird, feathery and noisy thing.