Ready, Set, Swap!

Hello Christmas Pals!

By now, you should have all received the name, address, e-mail and blog address for your new swap partner. Yay! Thanks so much for bearing with us and being patient while we made matches. It was a grueling combined total of 18 hours, but we think we did the best that we could for all of you and hope you enjoy meeting your new pals :) Please remember though, we are only human and we do occasionally make mistakes (especially after 18 hours!). So please, when you receive your pal's information, e-mail them within a week of today (by October 6) and confirm their address as well as establish contact. If you do not hear from someone by October 6 or if you did not receive an e-mail with a swap partner's info, please e-mail either Kasia or me (our e-mail addresses are in the sidebar) and let us know so we can track down the problem. Also, as I mentioned in your e-mails, this is a *secret* swap! So please don't spoil the surprise! Use an anonymous e-mail account when contacting your pal and please enable your blogs for anonymous comments so that your pal can stop by and say hello anonymously. If you have any questions on how to go about getting a secret e-mail address or enabling anonymous comments, please feel free to contact either one of us.

There have also been a few questions about the items that you are required to send to your partner. Please feel free to interpret them as creatively as you like! Once you get to know your swap partner's likes and dislikes, it might be easier to come up with some fun variations on the general guidelines. And please feel free to share on the swap site as well! Everyone can benefit from your creativity :)

One last thing - I know that some of you wanted very much to have an international pal and you may not have received one this time around. I assure you we tried our best to take all your requests into account, but there were far fewer international participants than participants from the USA. And some of those international participants wanted people closer to their home due to shipping costs. So, I'm afraid that not all of you will have your requests filled, but I hope that you can enjoy meeting someone from your own side of the world just as much :)

Happy Holiday swap everyone! Have fun!!

~Maryanne