Secret Santa swap gifts received

Having blogged about the gifts I sent to New Zealand, this blog post explains what I received.

I had sent Lorraine the following message for my Secret Santa:

My Sasha family have consulted with each other and decided that as baby Mabel didn't get a gift last Christmas she should have first choice, though my Gregor sport Nicholas James would love a cricket jersey as he wants to learn cricket.  Mabel would like a sleepsuit in girl colours (not velour) with matching hat and she would also like some plain tights, either white or pale pink or red.  A pair of hiking boots would also be welcomed by the bigger Sashas who say they will take it in turns to go for walks.

They had wished for walking boots, because as any doll collector will know, you can never have enough pairs of shoes, and this is something I haven't attempted to make yet myself. 

Towards the end of November a parcel arrived from the USA.  It was in a clear plastic bag because unfortunately it had got damp in transit (I half wondered if Hurricane Sandy had anything to do with this) and had come apart so Royal Mail had done their best to get it to me intact, however I don't think anything was missing, though some of the little packages had started to come undone.  Fortunately nothing inside them was damaged and I decided I would keep the parcels to open on Christmas day.  In the event they were the last thing we opened from under the tree on the 25th December, which was a lovely way to end the day, with all the Sasha family present.

This is what we received:

• a gift for Mabel - a lovely sleep suit with matching hat which she changed into straight away, and she was lucky enough to have her own fluffy Christmas stocking with some toys inside it too

Baby Mabel with her wonderful gifts

• a gift for Nicholas James - a pair of black lace up walking boots and a Christmas t-shirt

Nicholas James's Christmas t-shirt, and the game

• a gift for Miranda - a pair of dark red lace up walking boots and a Christmas t-shirt - this means they can go hiking together!

Miranda's Christmas t-shirt

• a miniature version of Friends of Sasha

Friends of Sasha

• A velcro ball and bat game for Miranda, Florence and Nicholas James (being held in the photo below by NJ and Florence)

Miranda, Mabel, NJ and Florence with their Secret Santa gifts

Miranda and NJ didn't try their new t-shirts and boots on straight away for these photos which unfortunately I took in rather a hurry because we were about to go away for a couple of days and I was meant to be packing.  Now we are home again I'll get them changed into their new Christmas clothes while we're still in the 12 days.

Red boots and black boots for hiking

The name and address on the parcel showed that our Secret Santa was Dorisanne Osborn - thank you for our lovely gifts Dorisanne, we hope you received something just as good as you sent to us.