I have a lot of what I think are good ideas.

Quite often they are not good ideas.

Case in point. Book Lover’s Advent Calendar. (As I type this I am thinking that ‘ is not needed).

Every year I try to find a new type of Advent calendar to enjoy. I usually try to find a tea one and this year I found that and the perfect one for my family and friends who are book lovers. I ordered 3 Advent Calendar for Book Lover’s for myself, my sister and one daughter in law. When my box arrived I was thrilled. They looked great and after I took the plastic wrapping off of mine I was excited to see the cute stuffed envelopes inside.

.

I had ordered these early in November and after I saw how nice they were I thought it would be a great early Christmas present for my two best friends, Ann and Beth. So I promptly ordered a calendar to be sent to each of them.

It seemed to take forever for them to ship and when they finally did arrive I got the question “Was there supposed to be something in the little envelopes?”

.

Uh, yes indeed there was supposed to be something in those envelopes and when both calendars arrived in the same condition I was a little miffed. So I promptly went back online, reordered and filed a claim for the calendars that were missing items. Of course I had to actually return them so I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get the refund but hey –I had other ones ordered.

Another long wait and finally, both calendars were delivered…

.

However, if you look closely, you can see misspelled words, letters that aren’t quite right and what the heck is a snornament? Open up the calendar and this is what was found in BOTH cases.

.

.

A bag of junkie stuff that wasn’t even tucked into the envelopes in the calendar. I mean it was really cheap stuff and nothing like what was in the original three calendars. If was so ridiculous and fortunately both Ann and Beth have great senses of humor and just laughed at it all. I actually got Beth’s and tucked stuff in the envelopes willy nilly but it was all just cheap stuff that she will just throw away. Mine was at least stuff I would use.

I mean look at this one item that was in the third set of calendars.

.

I laid the three versions side by side and they were all three totally different.

.

.

So what started out as a good idea ended up being a humorous adventure.

You can bet I was on the phone to Amazon after they had the final one delivered and I am happy to report that they refunded every penny spent on those ridiculous versions of the calendars. I wrote a review and posted it and I sure hope that others don’t get burned like I did. How the originals could be so nice and the later ones could be so ridiculously cheap is beyond me.

It did seem like a good idea at the time but the lesson I have learned is that seeing is believing and being able to actually see the item before sending it to a friend is probably a pretty important thing to do. Stay tuned for more “It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time” adventures.

Oh, and not to ruin the “surprise” for Ann and Beth but the final envelope in theirs features this ornament that I am still trying to figure out what has to do with books….Anyone got any ideas?

.