Ho Ho.... Huh. (Part Two)

(Thank you to everyone who entered our Truth is Stranger than Fiction contest!  Vic and I are excitedly reading the entries and will post winners Mon, Tues, and Weds... I will link to her winners, too, so you don't miss out!)

So you read about our adventures with Mall Santa here.  Further holiday head scratching ensues in 3...2...1...

Every year I take my kids to get Christmas portraits.  The portrait place is good with kids, they don't overbook - the experience itself has repeatedly been good, even with small kids.  I order a bunch of pics for family and I usually order all of my picture Christmas cards from them as well.  This does, however, become a little pricey (last year, the total ran over $200), so this year, I decided to go with one of their smaller packages of cards, knowing I would need more.  No prob, I planned to make more cards with Shutterfly.  (So, yes, there are two completely different versions of our Christmas cards this year, lol).

I always do the Christmas portraits the first week of November. There is method to my madness - we all have two days off of school that week, and early November is generally a few weeks before random illness makes my kids all snot-nasty.  This year was no different - a week after the portraits were taken, Tootsie Roll ended up with a cold and pink eye, and Curly Jones had a double ear infection and was wheezing in both lungs and sucking on a nebulizer every four hours.  (See?  This mama is no fool!)

I got my 36 portrait studio cards pretty quickly, addressed them, and created my Shutterfly cards on December 4, along with some other photo gifts.  On December 8, the photo gifts arrived in my mailbox, but the cards were nowhere to be seen.  On December 10, I checked my order online.  It said that the photo gifts had been delivered Dec. 8 by USPS and that the cards were delivered the same day by UPS.  I checked the tracking number with UPS, and sure enough, it said they were delivered to my front door.

Oh dear.  Bright orange Shutterfly envelopes are sort of hard to miss, but I went back out and checked all around the front steps, then over to the garage and anywhere else I could think it might have ended up.  No cards.  So I contacted Shutterfly and they told me to wait a few more days.  I said that didn't really make sense since both their site and UPS confirmed delivery two days prior.  They just kept saying to wait a few more days and they would reprint the order.  Urgh.

Meanwhile, I'm at home sighing, because this past summer, someone stole my credit card number and started ordering things, having them delivered in my name to my house, and picking up the packages before I got home.  This was a giant hassle which culminated in a 7 year lock on my credit (for my protection) and a two-day police sting in front of my house (eventful, but unsuccessful).  So of course I'm thinking that my package stealer has returned, even though we've gotten several holiday packages from Amazon recently without a problem.

The next day was Sunday, and after lunch, I had gone shopping while CJ napped and Handsome Hubby and Tootsie Roll hung out at home.  I came home to see the bright orange Shutterfly package on the steps inside  the house where we often leave the mail we bring in before we go through it.  I found HH in the bedroom and said, "The Shutterfly package came?  On a Sunday?" 

CJ, snuggled in my bed, said, "Mommy, it came.  The doorbell woke me up from my nap."  I looked at HH and he said, "Yeah... um.... someone rang the doorbell but when I opened the door, no one was there, just the package.  Completely ripped open."  Like so:

With my name and address, perfectly correct, on the other side.  Meaning... the package had been delivered, someone took it, kept it for four days deciding whether or not to return the Christmas cards with my kids' pictures on them, and then their conscience kicked in and they did.  And rang and ran.  Weird.

It sucks that people steal packages.  It's good that conscience or holiday spirit drove someone to return this one.  I mean, they could just as easily have tossed it in a trash can so as not to get caught.  It's funny they took this package and not any of the 15 others that have arrived bearing Christmas gifts for my entire family over the past few weeks, since they sit outside until we get home.  Huh.  Well, Merry Christmas, anyway. :)  Maybe the holiday spirit is alive and well after all.