An Unknown Package Arrives...

I came home from work the other day to find this sitting in the middle of my living room. I forgot to take a picture BEFORE we opened the box, so no it wasn't opened when it got there. But you can see how banged up there were!

Actually, there were two of them, the most beat-up, pathetic, pitiful looking boxes that I’ve ever seen. B was standing there looking at them and scratching his head in confusion. When I asked him what it was, he said that he didn’t know but that UPS had just dropped them off (Thanks Brown!) and it was from Bed, Bath and Beyond. Well, 2 plus 2 didn’t make 4 in his head, but the addition quickly added up for a math whiz like me!

WEDDING PRESENT!!!

Or maybe I should say wedding presents since there were two humungous boxes crowded into the open area of our living room. I immediately set to work on getting the tape off, while B took the smarter route and went to grab a pair of scissors. Since I had made NO progress by the time he got back with scissors...he thinks he's smarter! LOL!

We opened the boxes to find our dishes. One of the boxes held two groups of our dishes. Since we only picked out everyday dishes (no china in our house!) they are sold in place settings of 4...so two boxes meant 8 place settings! Score. Even though the boxes were wrapped in bubble wrap, some of them didn't look so good!

Then B asked the all-important question. “Well, who are they from?” Hmmm...good question, B. Surely there’s a piece of paper in here or something, right? Nope. Luckily for us, in the OTHER box there was a packing list that had a small card attached to it. But what else was in the box? Oh, just another box of our dishes, the completer serving set AND 12 of the matching “ice cream bowls.”

I looked at the bowls in confusion. Partly because there was one box of them opened and falling out...and partly because I didn’t remember registering for them! But they matched our set and they were REALLY cute... I pulled the card out of the little envelope to read the sweetest message from my Mom. Yep, she bought all of my dishes. Every single place setting, plus the serving pieces that make up the completer set. And the note read something like “We hope that you two are as happy as we are.” (Forgive me Mom, but I don’t have it here in front of me, so I paraphrased!)

I was so touched! B was so touched. We immediately called to tell her thank you and how excited we were to get such an AWESOME gift...she was glad that they got there all safe and sound and was surprised to hear that they arrived on the same day. Apparently the boxes were supposed to ship separately, but it’s a good thing that they didn’t since we wouldn’t have known who the one box without papers of any kind in it came from!

And when she asked me about the bowls, the mystery was cleared up – we didn’t register for them. But only because I don’t think that the BB&B where we registered had them. But they had them in the store that she went shopping in and they had them online when she placed her order...so she got them for us. She knows her daughter well – and I do love me some ice cream!

So thanks to my Mom and step-dad we got ALL of our dishes. And yes, I told her that she wasn’t supposed to buy them all. But she wanted to, and hey you gotta keep your mama happy, right? She’s real happy knowing that we got our dishes. She might not be so happy to hear that I spoke too soon on the phone when I told her that even though the boxes were all beat up, that everything arrived safe and sound...

There was one casualty to the shipping. We thought it was a lone coffee mug when we unpacked the box that had that tell-tale crinkling sound and we weren’t really concerned about one mug when we don’t even drink coffee and we DO have 11 others. But on closer inspection the box of salad plates was also making that sound...but 1 out of 3 isn’t bad if you ask me. And I’m sure that we can return it to BB&B with no problems for an unbroken one.

This was our first wedding gift to actually receive. It was SO much fun! And how smart was my Mom to have it shipped and not have to worry about toting those heavy things down here and all? Very smart! Although B now thinks that I’m crazy because I want to take one box of dishes to the wedding and put it on the gift table so that people can see them...

Have you received wedding gifts by mail? How fun is it for you? It was like Christmas at our house last night...