Christmas shopping at a distance

We received our first Christmas cards this morning. And this week we've been busy preparing Christmas presents to post.

I've remembered again that Christmas shopping is a different affair when you live overseas from your family and have a budget. It's best to look for not-expensive presents that aren't heavy for posting. Some people solve this by buying things online from 'homeland' companies with no postage.

And then as you get down to figuring out what to buy/make you realise how little you really know about your family. We've been sending presents home for years now and rarely find out if they are appreciated. We never see them open their presents, nor what other people give them. So, as they don't generally tell us, it is hard to know what people really like.

Every year we've been away we've compiled the year's personal video footage and send a copy of them to all our family (and a couple of friends too). That is appreciated, we've heard. This year we're doing something else with photos, I can't say what because the chance that someone will read this and find out early...well I don't even know if any of them read this blog, but I want to be careful nonetheless.

Christmas shopping also often happens earlier than we might do it back home. Often we've shopped when we are on our annual summer holidays - in July. This year we were doing other things in July, so it's been delayed until we can't delay any longer in November. I'm not sure how early we need to post, but if we get in early enough we'll get the sea mail option. Better check that one. International post is very expensive.

At least we aren't restricted like the USians in Japan are this season. Japan Post has put a nasty restriction on postage to the US. They can only post things under 1 pound (about 490 g) this year.

Then we have to start to think about our family here. This year we're going away for the week before Christmas, returning on Christmas Eve. That means one of two things. Either we're going to have to be very organised and get all our shopping done before we leave or we'll be shopping while we're away. The boys are hoping for the latter, because there happens to be a very cool Lego shop in the town we're staying in...maybe we'll give them some money and get them to shop for themselves.

But for now we'll just have to hang those Christmas cards up and find the Christmas decorations that we haven't seen for two years.