My pleasure @demid! I bought your gift at a store in Montreal called “Le Mycologue” (The Mycologist) where they sell anything and everything related to mushrooms. They even organize mushroom-picking excursions during the Summer and Fall months.
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Those books are so gorgeous! Thanks for sharing the photos 
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@cassie Oh, was it you? Well done fudging the origin then :D and thanks for it! 
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@antoviaque I promise fudging the origin wasn’t part of my mastermind plan! 
But I’ll take it 
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I’m coming to the conclusion that either the package I have sent is truly gone or that the recipient is going to have to take action to get it somehow. Its tracking information has not changed for about a month. I also haven’t gotten my gift, so I’m guessing I’m not the only one who has had this problem. If there are no objections, I’ll reveal who I was Santa for soon and give them the tracking info. I’m willing to learn the same from my Santa.
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@Fox On Friday I received a (very belated) note from the notorious SA postal service to say that there was a package for me. I went to collect it on Saturday.
It appears the arduous journey across the Atlantic took its toll! 
Unfortunately, the Thai sauce and the Texas Tea seem to have escaped their containers. But I am happy to report that I was able to salvage everything else, and have been snacking on Twinkies ever since! They’re delicious!
The hot sauce is great too! I’m looking forward to tucking into the Cheez-its and trying Reese’s for the first time (peanut butter is my absolute weakness 
).
Thank you for everything. It’s was nice to have my Christmas extended by 3 months!
P.s. The post office packaging gave you up as my Secret Santa…
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Oh wow! It looks like the package travelled under water Is that mud on one of those boxes, @Ali ?
I know, right?! It’s a mixture of mud and Thai green sauce.
Thankfully it was easy to wash off since most of the items were individually-wrapped.
Ha! I had it on my to-do list to reach out to you today and tip my hand with the tracking number. Glad to see it finally got there-- I wondered how the contents would fair-- I am glad I picked stuff that was (mostly) well sealed and able to sit for a while. It’s been nearly four months!
A shame That Green Sauce didn’t make it-- it’s a pretty popular sauce produced by a local grocery chain here. Color me surprised that the Texas Tea didn’t make it, either. I have to wonder what happened to the package to get it in such a state!
I still haven’t received my gift-- no idea who sent it. But hopefully it will show up here some day soon. 
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The South African Postal Service strikes again! 
Anyway, I’m very glad it arrived, even if it was very belated. Thank you!
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Yes, I guess it always depends on who will deliver your package 
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I’ve had almost the exact opposite experience here. Here is a photo of a printer as it was delivered to me by Amazon via Prime:
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@team I forgot to kick-start our Secret Santa campaign in October, oops! I’ll add a calendar reminder for next year.
The most wonderful time of the year is once again upon us. That means two things: Mariah Carey will be cashing in big time, and Christmas is coming. 
With the latter in mind, we now need your Secret Santa list! As a reminder, the concept is a gift exchange, where you’ll anonymously pick another team or community member and send them a small gift — and receive one from someone else too. You’ll submit your gift suggestions to a website, which also takes care of randomly assigning gift pairings.
Please confirm your participation by Wed, Nov 16th. Confirm your participation by liking this post.
After that, you’ll have 1 week to enter your gift suggestions, and then 2 weeks to buy/prepare your gift. Since we’re a bit late this year, we’ll likely receive our gifts in late December or January… but I say, better late than never!
I’ll post reminders.
Ho ho ho
cc. @sarina – I hope you and other friends join! I pinged Eden this morning, too.
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Shared with the team. Thank you Gabriel! :)
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Wonderful! And welcome to our public discussion forum, @Eden :) Feel free to post here when you want to discuss topics with OpenCraft team members.
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@gabriel I can’t believe the festive season is already upon us! 
I’ve liked the post but just a note - we mentioned last year that the South African Postal service is a royal disaster. If you recall @Ali received a parcel that was super battered and bruised (probably an understatement!) and I’m still waiting on my Secret Santa gift 
So I’d suggest for South Africans it might make sense to get gifts delivered from a South African online store (and also not send gifts from SA either!).
Thank you for organising!
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@cassie I had forgotten about that – ouch! It would definitely make sense to have a gift shipped from within SA, yes Maybe mention this on your gift wishlist (next week)? cc. @Ali
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I’m considering joining in this year, but I never received my gift from last year. :( At this point, would whoever got me let me know? And if you happen to have a tracking number, let me know what it was/is?
Update: Looks like I’ve gotten a note from my secret Santa assuring me that it’s still on the way, it’s just had a crazy route getting here. I am very curious what happened and looking forward to it!
@team tomorrow (Wed Nov 16) is the deadline to confirm your participation in Secret Santa – just like this post to confirm.
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For those of you who live in areas where postal service is terrible, we should share a few ideas for receiving / sending gifts.
- Threadless makes apparel, mugs, wall art and much more by partnering up with artists from around the world. Ali used it last year – they ship from the USA, so she was able to bypass South Africa’s postal service to successfully deliver a gift!
- Supermarket chains often have ecommerce websites offering shipping for shelf-stable items (snacks!).
- Etsy will generally indicate where the artist ships from.
- Jeff Bezos is evil, but Amazon can also work!
Other ideas?
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