.

Why not give him/her a rat sponsorship?

No, I'm not joking. Last year we sponsored a "HeroRat" in an eight-year old's name - and he loves it.

Quick background: African pouch rats have an incredible sense of smell, and a Belgian by the name Bart Weetjens began a program of training them to sniff out land mines in Mozambique. The team then went on to train more rats to smell TB from sputum samples. They have cleared thousands of mines and detected 30% more TB than lab work has done and are expanding the program all the time.

€60 will give a child a year's sponsorship, involving him/her with a very worthwhile project: they send a newsletter "from" the rat every few weeks by email, which includes videos showing how "their" rat is getting on - they love it!

Have a look at their website to see some heartwarming videos http://apopo.org/home.php?lang=en

Very cool! Thanks.

I will have to take alook at the website

We was only talking about the babs xmas gifts this year as it's our first in Australia we have noticed a massive difference between here and the UK as far as kids toys go anyway.
Most 'toys' here are learning based rather than kids play toys, not that bad an idea but kids need to be kids to.
We have two small girls and you can only but so many dolls and prams, so maybe the rat renting is another idea, they want rabbits at home

Thats brilliant, will make a change from phone contracts and Sky Sports deals!!

I have found the majority of Australian people I know don't go half as mad at Christmas as my english friends. A lot of our english friends go mental spending thousands on Christmas presents for their kids. Our Australian friends don't seem to do that, one main present with a few stocking fillers. I found when family sent money for my kids I was spending money for the sheer hell of it. Personally I find Christmas far less commercial here than in the UK, my opinion of course.

I have liked there facebook page and passed on to my cousin who keeps rats as pets herself so she will be very impressed with this amazing

I thought it was just QLD who couldn't have rabbits as pets? I'm actually really confused by your comments about toys? Granted I don't take much notice of kids toys but passing through Kmart, Target, etc the shelves and shelves of toys looks much the same as the UK shops to me.

The beauty of christmas here is that its all WRONG.... I mean shopping in that heat? ... Its not natural, its not normal and it so much EASIER not to get into the spirit of it all...

Creating new traditions is hard, but the carols on the foreshore,drive round the lights on christmas eve (especially those in cumberland ave for those in the shockingham area) are e start of our WRONG christmas traditions.... KIDS beg for the full turkey dinner with ALL the trimmings... So we do that... But its seafood and barbie on christmas eve, and down to the beach in the early evening... For an ice cream!!!!!

Kmart and the like might have shit loads of crap on the shelves, thats just it.

What i mean is the stuff on offer is not the best really, and the choice is rather limited.
I can also make it official now -
WE WITNESSED OUR FIRST CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS GOING UP TODAY all be it two small rope lights wrapped around the pillars either side of there door, but they are Christmas decorations, i guess oz is like the uk, well up in little britain it is i suppose

But they sell the same stuff they sell in all the shops in the UK It's all the same, normally made in China for a US company.

Some of the toys are the same, in the uk you do have a deeper pool to swim in yeah i have had a drink

Absolutely. On the whole the plastic crap for young kids is the same here. Now mine are older I don't have to worry about Barbie, Bratz etc but Macbooks, iPads etc!!!! Smaller but more expensive!