Mother, Inc

Speaking of Christmas shopping, every year, I make a mental note to do my Christmas shopping early but every year, I find myself panicking and making a mad dash down to town the week before Christmas to fight off the other 3.2 million Singaporeans who are also scrambling for last-minute Christmas presents.

We all know that panic shopping leads to gifts that look half-arsed or perfunctory, which is only marginally better than not getting any gifts at all.

This year, I’ve been good.

I’ve made lists, checked them twice and even prepared back up plans in case they’re out of stock since the start of November. And I’ve done it all without having to step out of the house. In two weeks time, while everyone else is fighting it out over last minute presents down at the stores, I’m going to be sipping my latte and admiring the boxes of presents all wrapped up and arranged neatly under my Christmas tree.

I’ve come to realize that the secret to getting thoughtful gifts is to get stuff that aren’t sold everywhere, or better yet, stuff that aren’t even retailing here. So when they open their gifts, they’ll be like “Wow thanks, this is really cool, where did you get it from?” and you can be all like “Oh, it’s one of a kind. I had it shipped all the way from this charming little store in Sausalito, California.” Then they’ll be like OMG, best gift ever in their heads.

Two words: Online shopping.

Ok, three more words: With vPOST shipping.

With vPOST, you can shop from anywhere in USA, Europe, Japan and China and have it delivered to your doorstep via a personalized vPOST address. It even allows you to consolidate the purchases from different merchants and enjoy lower shipping charges.

I’ve curated a list of awesome gift ideas from really cool stores and in the spirit of Christmas, I’m sharing them with you guys.

1. Monkey Hat – $35 USD

2. Forest Babies Puzzle – $13 USD

3. Star Wars Tee – $68 USD

4. 2 Tone Check Bow Tie – $25 USD

5. Lil Shopper Play Set – $24.95 USD

6. Flora Fest Twirly Dress $39 USD

7. Foxy Fox Organic Onesie $28 USD

8. Plaid Blazer $69 USD

9. Swoop Bag $48 USD

10. Playsilks $14.95 USD

What’s more – I couldn’t find these items in the Singapore retail stores, so they’ll be one of a kind.

*From now till 31 December, ship with vPOST for a chance to win a dream holiday in the lucky draw. Customers who pay their vPOST shipping invoice using their DBS/POSB Credit or Debit cards get double the chances and those using the DBS Woman’s card get 5 x chances.

1^st Prize: A pair of Air Tickets to New York OR London

2^nd Prize: A pair of Air Tickets to Tokyo

3^rd Prize: A pair of Air Tickets to Beijing

We don’t get a lot of toys for the kids because we’ve come to realize that the lifespan of most toys isn’t very long. I’ll admit that we did splurge on some stuffed animals, figurines and even those fancy developmental toys with lots of buttons that beeped, talked or sang when Truett was much younger. But they never lasted very long and once the novelty of the beepy sounds wore off, they all got relegated to the Box Where Toys Go To Die one by one.

So far the only toys that have some sort of longevity are those that require some creative thinking on their part and are versatile enough for different role-play scenarios.

Like Lego bricks.

The kids have been playing with Lego Duplo since they were like 1.5 years old and till this day, they’re still playing with the same bricks. They’ve just advanced from building unidentifiable blobs to slightly more advanced creations.

The awesome thing is that they’re not limited to building rational objects. They can literally make anything they want, like a flying treehouse or a helicopter rocket ship or an angry moustached man with six and a half limbs. Half the fun is having them explain exactly what they’ve built and seeing the world through their eyes.

Naturally, the kids were thrilled to be invited to attend a Lego Duplo event at Hokey Pokey, an indoor playground. We told them that they’d have access to a giant box of Lego bricks and they were like “is it really really huge, like 1 million Legos?” 1 million is their default large number of choice, which in their heads, is basically anything more than 25.

Unfortunately, Kirsten came down with a bug on that day so only Truett got to play with his 1 million Lego bricks. Which he enjoyed tremendously. Most of the kids were running around the different play areas before the programme started but Truett was like a homing device who immediately located the Lego stash and went to town with it.

During the event, the kids were all given Lego bricks and tasked to build 2 items: their dream home and their favorite animal.

Turns out my son’s dream home is the equivalent of a JTC flatted factory and his favorite animal is a turtle-snail-duck with a hump. I think another trip to the zoo is in order.