christmas gifts for family unable to come home
I thought this might be a good thread to start here as others might be in the same position too.
To start with, I have a smallish parcel I'm sending of stocking fillers that I have (and always seem to do) collected leading up to this time. I also thought I might organise some Asian cooking class vouchers, being her favourite food. Perhaps a food hamper from her favourite cheese shop too.
Anyone else making similar plans?
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jeannielea wrote: We too are planning gift vouchers for our family in Aus. Sadly postage here has just risen and makes it almost imp0ssible to send things. A small bar of chocolate and some tea cost $9.50 to buy and $15.60 to send. And three rubbers, two small paperbacks and a card cost almost $20.00. Plus it takes about a month as they put post in quarantine over there for 2 weeks. So looking on line for things to be delivered or activities they can do seems the best thing. We'll do the same for the ones in London.
What State/Terrority are you posting to in Aussie Jeannielea? Ours is in Qld and so far, the cookie time packs that I send have been getting through the mail system quite quickly...
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jeannielea wrote: These are to Qld too. My daughter lives in Cairns.
I sent off a box today, just under 4 kilos and just over 32cm x 32cm cube. $60 odd via air. Courier is no quicker in our experience to Qld.
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jeannielea wrote: For me that seems pretty expensive if you add it onto the cost of the gifts
I'm looking at it as a once-off. I would never forgive myself if our Daughter who is on her own, didn't have something to open on Christmas morning and still in Qld unable to come home.
I watched/listened to the PM and Mike Hosking this morning and I'm not impressed. Sadly I don't think when Aussie gets their internal borders open as has been said in time for Christmas, that our PM has any intention of letting Kiwi/Aussie residents back in for Christmas.
But that's another subject best left for another thread....
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jeannielea wrote: I could echo all of that! We had hoped the border would open so we could be there for Christmas (daughter can't come home because the three kids would not be allowed to leave by their Dad). I hate the humidity then but her ex makes life very hard at Christmas and she is often left by herself with calls from unhappy kids throughout the day. Sadly one just has to sit by and watch and wait at this time. Hope things change so your daughter can make it though it seems quarantine facilities are y=too full anyway
We were hoping with Qld being the same as NZ with the infected only coming in from o/s flights and in isolation, that NZ and Qld (along with the other covid free states/territories) would form an isolation free bubble. It's not worth the cost nor the 2 weeks to go into one of the accommodations for a 10-day work shut down period. And the PM did say earlier once Aussie got their borders open NZ would start a bubble.. that was before the election of course.
That is tricky and very sad for your Daughter. Can She not apply via Court to allow the children back here? NZ and Aussie have very tight child custody rules and controls.
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The parcel I put in the mail on Monday (old franklin district) still hasn't progressed to the distribution centre (Auckland).
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jeannielea wrote: Things are progressing very slowly and threats by the ex mean it takes a lot of courage (as well as money)to move to the next step. Covid has certainly made it very lonely for her trying to deal with it all.
A local friend has a close family member going through similar o/s and She is on the verge of booking a ticket out to go and stay to support her relative. The police have all but washed their hands of it, despite it gone through the legal process.
I think we are going to see terrible results from a prolonged lockdown including that of mental health. I was looking for the WHO announcement some weeks back that Countries need to stop lock down and start managing the illness, however now read its not being attributed to the WHO organisation as it was initially.
Strange times.
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