This is the least altruistic report card so far. But, as previously discussed, I maintain that a good deed is a good deed, whatever the motive. This week's motive was Christmas shopping.

Every year we ask each other what we'd like for Christmas, and seldom can anyone come up with a reply. So every year we make a luke-warm guess or, in my somewhat more practical family, chalk up a gift IOU to be filled when the giver or receiver actually can think of something, and it's never quite satisfying. Because I love giving. But not for the sake of exchanging unecessary tat so we can all appreciate "the thought". So this year, we decided to go whole hog with the charity gifts.

We chose this site, because they offered a range of gift packages to suit every taste and budget, promised to send all our money to the nominated charity, and checked out nicely on a google search of independant sources. We decided to personalise our gifts by matching the receiver carefully with a particular cause, and agreed that if we knew of the perfect non-charity gift for someone, we'd get that too. My mother, for example, is getting to help a women's cancer screening program in Guatemala, because she's a cancer-surviving woman, and also a studio portrait of myself and sisters in a handsome frame, which I hope to replace with a more likeable photo before too long.

We debated over a present for SIL's family. In the end he won and we bought a gift from the same charity to send a child to school, because she's planning to finish her degree someday and become a teacher. In return he agreed not to purchase this book for our nephew.

Also, for the first time I wished our clinic gave embryo pictures. Because I was seized with a sudden (though not, I think, morbid) desire to include Christmas photos of the ten little embryos who tried so hard this year, especially the three who "almost" made it.