Trees moult, days shrink, Arctic birds arrive and a dozen varieties of cranberry sauce crowd everyday items off the supermarket shelves. So we, naturally, have been filling shoeboxes for Romania.

In this we are not alone. From Belhelvie in the north to Llanvihangel Crucorney in the west to Wingerworth in the middle, British schools know what it behoves them to do at this time of year. Fill shoeboxes for Romania.

The origins of this ritual seem lost in time and space. Some say that it began in 1994 when a bunch of Manchester Rotarians started sending Christmas gifts to an orphanage in the city of Iasi. They packed the gifts into shoeboxes. Others say a Sussex couple set the ball rolling four years earlier. After seeing television images of child poverty in the wake of Romania’s 1989 revolution, they launched a “family shoebox appeal”. Hertfordshire churchgoers and a compassionate Texan feature in similar creation stories. But whichever version you subscribe to, one element remains a constant: the shoebox.

With its finite capacity and domestic simplicity, this satisfying and convenient double-cube can be wrapped, stacked and counted. It represents the containerisation of charity. Unfortunately, the qualities of the box do not extend to its contents.

The list of “suitable items” which appeared in my son’s school bag included Beenie babies, geometry sets, fountain pens, small planeshelicopters, magnets and bow ties. It’s a moving list, but also a surreal one. Bow ties? Small helicopters? In my mind’s eye, dinner-jacketed boys amuse themselves with curious war games.

Such lists generally include provisos. While hair shampoo is welcome, hair conditioner is forbidden. Is there a problem with conditioner? Are there health concerns? Do the Romanians know something we don’t? One list offered a clue. Customs regulations in Romania, it said, prohibit the sending of dried or tinned food, coffee or tea, medicines, out-of-date items, chocolate, liquids and gels.

Are Ceausescu’s bureaucrats still at work, curdling the milk of human kindness by spreading confusion? Or are these merely the irrational elements that are essential to any good ritual? Answers on a shoebox, please.