Shipping Options to Help Keep Christmas Presents a Surprise

One of the items my son repeatedly said that he wanted was a toy cash register. He loves numbers, math, and money, so when I found the Teaching Cash Register on sale at Amazon I bought it.

I made a huge mistake and did not check the “this is a gift box”, so Amazon, slapped a shipping sticker on it and mailed it to me and UPS left it on my doorstep 2 days later…where my son jumped up and down with delight when he saw it. I was hoping for that reaction when he opened it, not when it was delivered. I was quite upset that the surprise was ruined and mentioned it on Facebook. One of my friends told me that if I had checked “this is a gift” Amazon would have made sure that the box was covered. Since it was coming to my house and I wasn’t having it wrapped, I didn’t think I needed to check that box. I was wrong. Make sure when ordering online to check “this is a gift” if you want the gift to come in a plain package.

Another thing that I could have done was signed up for UPS MY CHOICE. I’ve know about this service for a while, but put off signing up for it, which is silly because it is free.  With UPS MY CHOICE  you will receive alerts before packages arrive. UPS MY CHOICE also allows you to reschedule, redirect, reroute or authorize shipment release for your deliveries, so you never miss a delivery again or allow your kids to see their presents prior to opening them.

This is a useful feature on so many levels, but I am using this to ensure my kids won’t  know where that plain-wrapped brown box came from… like when my oldest son saw a package that came from Barnes and Noble shortly before his birthday. He didn’t know what was in the box, but he definitely had some fairly accurate ideas. Now that I receive alerts, I am going to send the kids out and clean the horse pens during the time that packages are being delivered. It’s a win-win situation. 🙂

This post contains sponsored content, how ever the opinions are entirely my own.