Happy holidays, and thank you, Tawny, for inviting me to blog today! I’m excited to be back in the Blaze lineup after lo, these many moons, and even more excited to share the billing with Rhonda Nelson and Jill Shalvis. BTW, Rhonda deserves all the credit for coming up with the Damon Claus concept for BETTER NAUGHTY THAN NICE. She rocks.

So . . . it’s that time of year again. Do you all have your shopping done?

I always vow that this year will be different and stress free. Hahahahaha. I think it’s a holiday rule: No matter how carefully you plan your gift-giving, there’s always that one stinkin’ present that turns into a hellacious hassle. Last year it was a Thomas the Train storage table. This year it’s Ugg boots.

My son gave me the word – my granddaughter wanted Ugg boots, but I wasn’t to get REAL Ugg boots, which would be expensive and silly for a kid who’d outgrow them in six months. He said the fake kind were at Costco at a reasonable price.

Those of you who shop at Costco know the drill. Gift items are here today, gone tomorrow. By the time I got to Costco, those fake Ugg boots were way gone. But was I discouraged?

Well, yes, but this is the season of good cheer, so I contacted my friend Google to search Ugg boots online. And I found some! At a great price! Ordered them with a song in my heart and a Visa card in my wallet! Failed to notice the price was in . . . pounds.

Okay, so the girl was going to get actual Ugg boots from Australia, and it was extravagant, but what the hey. It’s the holidays and the bill won’t come until January.

Except . . . the boots were shipped from China. I could tell because there were Chinese characters all over the packing slip. I’m quick that way. And the box was damaged, although the boots were fine, except they stunk to high heaven. But I comforted myself that at least they’d have that all-important Ugg label on the heel.

Except . . . they didn’t. The label was WHOOGA. Which is an approximation of what I said when I saw it. Had I accidentally paid full price for a Chinese Ugg boot knockoff? And what about that godawful smell? Fortunately I’d saved the web site email address, so I researched returns and discovered that I could, in fact return these smelly, not-labeled-Ugg boots, but I’d have to pay postage. TO CHINA???

Before resorting to such drastic measures, I shot off an email to the company. The reply was extremely civilized and stated that these were, in fact, Ugg boots made by another Australian company with a pedigree as good as Ugg itself, and that all Ugg-type boots were now manufactured in Asia, and that the smell was from the tanning process and would go away in a few days. They apologized about the battered box.

Faced with return postage to China (or Australia, not any better), I set the boots outside to air, and you know what? The smell is gone. The boots are lined with genuine sheepskin and they’re cozy to the touch. My granddaughter isn’t expecting boots with Ugg on the heel. When she sees WHOOGA, she’ll probably think I got them at Costco. I’m giving up on the angst and giving her the boots.

Which gift is keeping you up nights or causing you to haunt the stores or eBay? Or are you all done and feeling smug about it?

This entry was posted on Monday, December 14th, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under Guest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.