First, I want to say, not for the last time, but one of them, to be sure, as we are down to the wire, that there is still time to pick your ferrets. Not to get them their gifts on time, but a gift certificate will let the shelters know someone cares. Even a $5 gift certificate combined with someone elses of the same amount will go a long way for a shelter, so please consider it. At the last count that we took, there are only twenty-some ferrets left without Santas. That does not count page 42, which has nothing on it as of this posting. We have done much better than last year, even with pages coming out of left field. To any shelters left with ferrets who have not gotten Santas by Christmas, I want to apologise. We have tried our hardest. We have urged and cajoled, begged and pleaded and pretty much bankrupted ourselves for the month as well picking ferrets. Please know that there are alot of us out here who care for your and your little charges a great deal, its just we care so much more than we get paid or they would all be taken long ago... We would like to thank the Santas'. People like Marie Cooper, who cleared the California tree singlehandedly, and Marie in British Columbia who is handling alot of the Canadian ferrets. Alot of people have taken multiple ferrets, but to everyone who has picked even one, thank you for your support- it means the world to these little ones to have the goodwill of people like yourselves. There is a special place for people like you, and it doesn't have a fireplace! It does depress me more than a little to realize that there are more than 3000 people on the FML, and that the giving tree link has been up on multiple other lists, and still it isn't cleared. I'm not sure what else it will take, but when a few people are taking multiple ferrets, and alot of people are taking single ferrets, and a whole lot more are doing nothing, it saddens me. If it was one of my ferrets in the shelter I would hope someone would step up and help, but I'm not sure that would be the case. I generally try to look more for the good in people, and we still have time, maybe I will be suprised, but it takes so much to get everyone motivated, the same everyone who would be asking for help if their ferret were sick, that I am fighting some depression every time I look at the tree. Please, if you can spare even $5, go and get a ferret a gift certificate. If 10 people do that, a shelter has $50 to work with, and while the ferrets won't have Christmas presents on the day in question, the shelters will know we cared enough not to leave anyone out- there are just a few left now, we can do it, we just have to care enough to do it........ ~Gerri [Posted in FML 6191]