Answering Emails

First of all, let me tell you that I'm feeling much better. I really appreciate all the texts, emails, blog comments, and phone calls that expressed concern for my health. I wasn't too worried... as I said, I seem to fight mild food poisoning about once every 5 years or so. I don't like it but I do know what to expect. Nevertheless, I'm staying on a bland and light diet today and tomorrow just to be sure I'm past the worst of it.

I did have a chance to catch up on emails. My inbox fills up every year on Christmas morning and the 2-3 days immediately following. The overwhelming majority are words of appreciation and/or encouragement, but, there are always a few asking about why they didn't receive the gift they asked for. I'm sure some of you reading this may be wondering the same thing. I refer you to my November 26th post "Setting Expectations" and my December 20th post "How Many Houses?". Both blog entries lay out - thought admittedly indirectly - the major criteria for being able to receive gifts from me and the North Pole Inc. team. More times than not, the reason some one did not receive a gift was because they didn't meet one of these major criteria. Some of the biggest ones laid out in those two posts include: Must be age 14 or under (though there are some exceptions, about 102M exceptions this year), must celebrate Christmas, must have parental permission on file at North Pole Inc. to enter the premisis & deliver gifts, must truly believe that I exist, and must be on the "Nice" list. That excludes many of the people inquiring about their presents.

Sometimes, the gift request itself doesn't qualify. We can not fulfill requests for boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses, etc. as it could be in violation of some international human trafficking laws. Delivery of live animals is severely limited by local & international government regulations plus parental controls. Gifts must be under US$10,000 in value with only a very few exceptions granted. And sometimes we just don't have the inventory available (though we try to fulfill orders at over 99% and, in fact, usually succeed at meeting that goal).

So I encourage you to read the two posts (12/20 & 11/26) for more details. If you still fail to see why your request was disqualified, please let us know immediately.

Happy New Year, everyone!