Busiest Day of the Year for Us!

What a day!  

Today was pretty much the last day that packages could still be shipped via UPS "ground" and still make it to their destinations in time for Christmas.  That made it our busiest day of the year!   Saturday, Erica spent the day at the store with me, wrapping gifts for our family (I certainly don't have time to do it, and she was happy to take over that responsibility and see what everyone else was getting!).  She even wrapped a few of her own gifts that I had in boxes already!   :D

Once she was done with that, she helped me to pack orders.  Greg dropped Aaron off on his way to work and he helped us to finish up some of our orders and get some other work done in the store.  We packed over 50 orders on Saturday and after that, I had a bunch of gift boxes to make that had been ordered by a friend on another forum.  While the store closes at 5 on Saturdays, we didn't leave until about 7 p.m. and then I had a couple hours worth of work to finish up at home, along with getting dinner done, etc.  

We also had a local business owner stop in and order a bunch of gift boxes that I have to put together.   I'm trying to figure out when I'm going to have the time to do that, and right now am planning on doing that tomorrow night so they can go out Wednesday.  They're all local, so with UPS delivery, they'll all arrive the next day, so I have a little bit of leeway in getting them out.    Many of our local business owners do their best to shop locally and help the Abbotsford economy.  We really appreciate it when they think of us!  

Sunday, it was Abby's turn to help me at the store!  She got to wrap a few more gifts, and even picked out a couple gifts from the other stores in the mall.  Once that was done, she helped me pack over 50 more orders.  Once again, we left late.  

I had just ordered more boxes for shipping our hot dog forks and marshmallow trees on Friday, to be delivered on Monday, and with the sudden influx of Gift Box orders, it turns out I didn't have enough boxes or packing peanuts to ship them!  Thank goodness the company I buy all that from is just over in Eagan, MN, so I ordered them today and they'll be here tomorrow.  I can't wait to see what 24 cubic feet of packing peanuts looks like!  LOL  

We try to recycle boxes, as often as possible, and I get them from Dollar General next door to us quite often.   I'm always digging around in their back room and taking boxes before they put them in the recycling dumpster.  I don't know what I'd do without them!   Greg has also been bringing me boxes from County Market, as it's just been crazy and difficult to keep up with.  

Why am I telling you about the boxes?  Well, it's kind of funny!  

I had a call from a customer this morning stating that although UPS claims to have delivered his waffle iron to him, he couldn't find it anywhere.   The really sad part about this is that it was left on the front steps of a CHURCH!    Can you imagine someone stealing a package from a CHURCH?   Oh yea, going straight to hell for THAT one!  

I told the customer that I'd ship him another waffle iron today and file a claim with UPS.  No need for him to wait for UPS to do their thing.  I'll ship it today so he has it in time for Christmas.  He was thrilled with my response, as Amazon and UPS both were less then helpful.

I promptly filed a claim with UPS and was preparing to ship a new waffle iron to him when he called back.   The package had been found.  Apparently, an employee had found the box and because it said it was "perishable", they put it in the fridge!!!   :lol:      I'm thinking that I should maybe invest in a good magic marker to cross out that sort of stuff on boxes that I recycle!   LOL

We ended up with another new record today -- shipping out a total of  160  packages!   Those included the ones from Saturday and Sunday that we packed up earlier, and then today's orders.   Mom came in to help today, which was wonderful.  She worked hard and we had a good time.  I'm sure she's tired.    

The girls came to the store after school and helped me with some other things we had to finish up, and we finally left at 6:45, but not to go home!  We had to go to Erica's Christmas concert at the high school, so we didn't get home until about 8:45 p.m.   The concert was wonderful and we enjoyed it.  One thing I really enjoy about living in the "middle of nowhere" is that when the kids have a Christmas concert, we don't hear only "holiday" songs, but were treated to beautiful old favorites like Silent Night, O Holy Night (my
FAVORITE Christmas song) God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, etc.  In essence, the concert covers a big genre of music from classic Christmas songs, to newer holiday songs like "Christmas Shoes".  Really a fabulous concert and collection of music.  

We heard everything from the 6th grade band, the middle school choir, the two high school choirs, the show choir (FABULOUS dance & song routines!) and the middle and high school bands.  

Sorry this is so long!  Not sure who will read all the way through, but if you did, THANK YOU!  It's now way past my bedtime, and I'm exhausted.  

Take care, everyone!

Julie