Who's been naughty and nice

I've done a lot of my Christmas shopping online this year. Anyone who has tried to shop in brick-and-mortars pushing a stroller with an antsy 1 year old and a 3 year old racing here and there like a Chinese dragon would understand this. So far, the retailer on the top of my list is englishteastore.com. My mother's side of the family is so big, we draw a name in a gift exchange so we don't have to buy presents for umpteen aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins. I drew my uncle, who married his way into this crazy family after moving here from England. He is a big candy freak, and so I got the idea to buy him $35 (the designated gift exchange limit) in British sweets. englishteastore.com had a huge variety at amazingly reasonable costs, I got a huge box for my money that I know my uncle will love. I received an immediate email acknowledgement of my order, and a second email when my order had shipped just a day later. A class act all around.

Getting a lump of coal from Santa Jen this year (and no clickable link) is Fossil.com. I ordered a sun hat and credit-card wallet a week ago from that site and got no confirming email. I was unable to check my order status on their site. Having a funny feeling, I picked up the phone this morning (a horror for an internet addict like me, having to talk to a real person!) and found that the hat order had been cancelled as out of stock. Though, as of this moment, it STILL shows as available on their website. So they shipped only the credit card holder, without notifying me. To make it worse, they "accidentally" shipped to me at the billing address despite their acknowledgment that I had indicated a separate ship-to address in Florida. After a good 20 minutes on the phone with 3 different customer service reps, they are refunding my shipping cost of $2.95. I won't spend it all in one place.