Christmas in September

We received our first package tonight and we could not contain our excitement!

Two weeks ago I found my own personal gold mine for online ordering: Lands End with a UK branch. SCORE! I have outfitted my kids in Lands End outer wear, foot wear and clothing since birth. They are great quality items with great prices and have excellent customer service. The kids needed Fall coats and shoes.... and snow pants (you have to be prepared here; snow can arrive as early as Oct.). Rather than spend yet another weekend on a time-consuming shopping errand driving all over the Budapest Metro area, I decided to just order from a web site I knew (and hoped) I could count on.

So.... I knew the package would be arriving sometime last week. After receiving two postal slips in the last week for attempted deliveries, I was starting to lose patience, as were the kids. How was I going to receive this package? Why can't they just leave it at the door step like they do in Oregon? Arrrgghhh. On the second slip, a box was checked (in Hungarian) that basically said, "call a.s.a.p. or we will send the package back within 7 days." Yikes! Many thanks to my wonderful T.A. at school who translated the slip and made the phone call for me. I was promised it would be delivered today after 4:00, but tonight we started to lose hope. 6 pm came and went, then 7 pm, then 7:30. I was totally annoyed and assuming the worst: the package isn't coming.

Granted, I have reason to be so cynical. Hungary is on our s**t list for not showing up when they're supposed to. We experienced this with our cable service and electricity (twice). We were given a date and time, and they simply didn't come. Then our landlord got a phone call a week later asking why we weren't home on such-and-such date, which of course was not the date they'd given us. But I digress....

So tonight, when the delivery guy showed up at 8 pm - 4 hours late - I shouldn't have been surprised. The front gate rang and we all sprinted down the stairs. "It's here, it's here!!" we shouted as we fumbled through our set of keys to open the house door, the main door, and then the gate (yes... a blog about the keys for another time!). I signed for the package as the kids squealed with delight. S even said, "Mom, it's like Christmas!"

Merry Christmas to all.... it was a very good night.