This is the 1st Christmas where our son has actually asked for something for Christmas - totally warms my heart that maybe he's finally joining us in this celebration. He's even SO good at it that he is like any other kiddo his age...he wants ALL the stuff he sees on TV.
What he really wants, and what we asked Santa for in his letter this year is Vanilla Powder and Hungry Hippo Game. Seems easy enough...people use Vanilla Powder on their fancy drinks, people have fancy coffee makers in their home, this should be easy peasy to purchase.....NOT!
I put the call out on facebook about where to purchase the powder, since there aren't ANY available at all the coffee shops. A few years ago, I remember them having them available to purchase for Christmas gifts...but not this year. I was immediately bombarded with ideas on where to find it and what the packaging looked like! COOL Bananas and off I went. I found it in all the places suggested and it comes in tiny envelopes. When I got home to post that I found it...my brother's girlfriend said she went out at lunch and bought some and popped it in the MAIL! O.M.G! What a wonderful, heart warming thing to do.
You'd think that was the end of it...but Oh No! My plan was to get a salt or pepper shaker to put a wee bit of the powder in, so I could limit the amount of sugar he was scarfing down and wrap it with a lovely big bow. He's always wanting to have vanilla sugar when I stop for a coffee and expects me to bring some home to him if I go to get the coffee during an errand. Well, one day I decided I WOULD bring him some home - well, instead of being happy he was extremely upset - he wanted it in the exact CONTAINER like at the coffee shop...which means NOT in a wee shaker...great...now off to find these containers.
I looked at all the shops that had cooking supplies and found one with a handle...which I bought, just in case, because the one he's used to does NOT have a handle, I thought I better keep looking so as to avoid a meltdown Christmas morning when Santa brought the wrong container. I went to my normal Second Cup and asked where they got there's...hoping they'd just sell me one...but they were all over-used BUT they did whip out their computer and hunt down what the container was called (its a dredger, by the way) and looked like amazon was the way to go - COOL! They went out of their way to help me track down a container.
BUT...its still not the end - they offered to sell me a HUGE bag of the vanilla powder sugar they use so that its the "correct" sugar! YAY - totally warms my heart that more people would help me out with this Santa gift.
Surprise, Surprise...the story isn't done! I googled and looked and with shipping, the $7 item was going to be $30 (I have no idea whey they wanted to charge so much for shipping...C.R.A.Z.Y.) I did eventually find a place in Ontario that had them for $4...so I bought 2 (just in case) and picked the 2-4 day shipping and did the dance of joy! A week later, nothing had arrived, so I e-mailed to see if it had been sent...and NOPE, not sent...so they promised to send it out that day...which they did since they sent me the shipping tracking number - sweet - expected arrival Dec 16!
Dec 16 came and went...so I looked at the tracking and it said it would arrive Dec 19...huh? I looked later in that same day and it said they had mis-routed the package and they were going to try again and the NEW arrival date was Dec 23 - EEK...getting a little CLOSE! Now I'm looking DAILY at the tracking. The parcel was bounced to pretty much every larger city in Ontario...hello people....Alberta is WEST of Ontario...there are MORE places in Canada than Ontario!
Then it says that it's new delivery date is Dec 30! O.M.G.! What is going on with this $4 item that I purchased back on Dec 4....that isn't getting here until after Christmas...I can ship a small parcel to Australia in less time! I go onto facebook to bemoan that this one gift, the one that he really REALLY wants, isn't going to happen. I consider using the one with the handle - but my friends come up with a local place that might have them (why that shop didn't show up during my googling, I'll never know)...another mentioned I should take the one with the handle and offer a trade for the used one at Second Cup...all these suggestions to help my kiddo get his Christmas wish!
I was able to find exactly what I wanted at this place in town (PHEW) and I will most definitely ship back these other 2 the minute they arrive. As of today, the tracking stopped on Dec 19 - so I have no idea where it is...on some slow boat to Alberta!
My heart was totally warmed, on several occasions this season, by several different people! WOW - I'm a very blessed girl!
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