2020 Holiday Exchange - Secret Santa

wow stuff like that Constantius coin just have me in awe of the generosity of some!!

You better not shout
You better not cry
You better not pout
I'm tellin you why
COVID has come to town
and has been delaying all kinds
of letters and packages.
Patience Grasshoppers


On a lighter note I have received - (not asked for or required or wanted)
numerous copies of tracking numbers from members who have sent packages and they have not arrived yet.

We even have one member who is not USA based who fet so bad that the package they sent has not yet arrived - they have sent a second one (registered) and it has not yet arrived.

End of this coming week Santa will start sending out tracking emails to those whose packages have not arrived to the receivers.

is there any word, on if our 2 donor kids, have been receiving their gifts, from those of us who sent one?

Nothing in my mailbox yet, but hey, I am cool with getting coal - I am a geologist after all!!

Dear Princetane and everyone,

I don't really know which countries are LDC countries but I do not think Turkey or Romania has any better or worse postal systems than any other country, especially during the pandemic which is a global cause of concern.

I sent a small package to an address in the Netherlands in November 16 last year. Tracking showed me that the package left Turkey in November 18, and received in the Netherlands at December 2nd. It somehow sit at some place in the Netherlands until last week and suddenly it was delivered to the recipient a few days ago.

I live in metropolitan Istanbul, almost adjacent to the European side city centre. Istanbul is spanning over 140 kilometers East-West direction and expectedly has more than one city centres (but only one historical centre - the European side city centre)

You are right about that Princetane, we do not celebrate Christmas like the Anglo Saxon world. Even though there are about five churches active and open to worship in Istanbul (three of them being more than a century old, historic ones) the Christian population isn't more than 10,000. During Christmastime, the chruches are all decorated and looking quite nice. And no, owning or having Christianity (or any other religion including the flying spaghetti monster religion:-)) themed paraphillia, books, bibles, crosses, santa costumes or anything else has never been a crime in my geography for the last 700 years, neither in Turkey nor in its predecessor, the Ottoman empire. Last time I checked, plastic Christmas trees were a top seller during December in Amazon Turkey.

Having said all those, for me Christmas or the new year is a time for giving and be happy & try to make others happy. I do not care of I receive a physical item out of our activity here under the Secret Santa exchange. I have been a member of this forum for about 11 years and participated in several other secret Santa exchanges as well and in one of them years ago, I didnt receive anything (but I know my sender has sent me one) and it was, and still is perfectly okay by then and now. My point is, I enjoy being a part of the secret santa activity more than having the chance to make a blind trade and receive a numismatic item from another user. I like to participate by sending, I do not really care if or when I receive something else.

So, dear Princetane, since you posted you are my sender, just be relieved, I know you sent and the rest is out of your hands. Whatever the outcome is, you did your part and I have never asked either you or Richard that where has my gift been posted any inquiries at the CCF under any topic.

I'm sorry this has been an long post, but since my name come up above in a rather descriptive post, I thought it's better to explain what I am thinking (and have been thinking even before my Santa posted a picture of the posted envelope). Princetane, I do not need any pictures, never asked for, I take fellow CCF members words (your) over any kind of proof.

I apologise for my English as its not my native tongue. I hope what I am saying makes some sense.

Thank you for reading this.

Sorry Molydeii, I assumed it had a bad postal service.

Hope you get it soon as I put a lot of care into it.

I was quite surprised today when my wife came back from the post office with a package for me, and not the one she was hoping for - our post office package slip said my first initial, and surname, but the funny thing is that we all have the same first initial!!

My package arrived all the way from Turkey!

In light of recent posts, I am pretty sure I know the user name of my assignment (pm forthcoming);

Wow!

Not to detract from the contents of the package, I thought it was super cool to have received a package from a part of the world that I may probably never see.

I received a nice letter explaining some of my gift.
I really appreciate the thoughtfulness of this gift - thank you very much!!
oh yeah, I'll have to do some online searches to look into each coin, and the significance of the bill. I have a couple Turkish coins in with my foreign coins that I received as a child, but my Turkish collection just got a LOT bigger!

I've never had authentic Turkish delight, but as a young child my favourite "chocolate bar" was a 'Big Turk' - which was as I've understood it, was an American confectioner's take on chocolate coated Turkish delight (it was really more just a chocolate coated jujube);
I will share this with my wife and kids, and I am sure we will all enjoy it!



Thank you very much!!