The downside of being organised...

You know, this is the first year in as long as I can remember where I have been incredibly well organised with our Christmas preparations. At the start of November I finished the Christmas shopping for our family in South Africa and I sent it so that it would get there well ahead of time. I have finished the kids shopping and they are ready to be wrapped and put under the tree (which I won't do until there is about 2 or maybe 1 week left so that it won't be too much torture for the kids ;-) ). I know what Terence wants and will be getting it later this week. We are having lots of fun with our advent calendar and I have already started thinking about our Christmas day meal.

Now I find it quite ironic that the one year I am this organised with plenty of time to spare, it is starting to look like our Christmas parcel to South Africa is taking way longer than it should and I already have nightmares that it will go missing somewhere (and since it is sent Economy there is no tracking on it). And I won't be surprised because about 6 years ago I wrote my mother an actual letter and sent it to her in the mail and I don't think it ever arrived and since then I don't have much faith in the South African postal service, even though so far we've been lucky each time we sent Christmas parcels. When I went to send our parcel to South Africa the guy behind the counter asked me how often we send to South Africa and I explained that it is pretty much Christmas and for the kids birthdays and he then asked "and it arrives every single time?" Hmmm...

Sigh! I keep hoping that it will arrive any day now.

If anybody knows of a proper online gift shop in South Africa, please let me know. Kalahari is not suitable because books, CDs and DVDs are difficult to buy when you haven't seen somebody for a long time and ideally I would have liked to be able to buy from a place like Woolies as they have great ordinary gifts, but last time I checked they didn't do gift wrapping. Or maybe this could be a great business opportunity? ;-)