Whoa! Amazing!

My gifter was really communicative about when the gift would come, so it really wasn't a surprise when someone from a carrier rang the doorbell. Apparently they rang the wrong bell at first because I hear my upstairs neighbor talking with the delivery guy. They both seem puzzled. When I accepted the gift I see why: There is an unfamiliar name on the package?? I guess the store where my gifter ordered accidentally put my gifters name on the package rather than mine! I'm glad I knew to expect this package, otherwise I would have been even MORE puzzled :P.

The package consists of a nice paper bag, very easy to carry up the stairs to my apartment, it's not quite heavy but it's not exactly lightweight either... The paper bag has the brand name 'Rituals'. That is a really nice store, so I'm already very excited seeing that! Unfortunately the mailman is disturbing me while I am cooking, so I have to finish making and eating dinner.

Luckily I don't have to go anywhere tonight, so I can open it right away after dinner! Turns out there's not a box in the bag like I expected, but there's another bag in it, and it's upside down. I removed the tape holding it there and tried to pull the bags apart, only to find that they stapled them together at one side! Pretty secure packaging, funny to see how they manage to ship something in bags like that. After tearing the paper a bit to get past the staple, the bags pull apart to show something big and red peaking out from the bag...

It turns out it's a big red box, and a small yellow/gray box. The big box has a white banner and a lovely red ribbon with some kind of seal. There's a tiny card on the ribbon that says 'This gift is the first step to creating beautiful memories', which is just so lovely. My gifter actually sent me a message that the gift they sent was meant for me to help create an atmosphere to put down my phone and pick up a book more often, which is exactly what I would like to do more of this year. I'm really touched by this note echoing my gifters earlier message, it means a lot!

Of course I'm getting more and more curious what is actually inside the box, so I remove the ribbon and the white banner and get greeted by another message: "A life filled with wonder is a wonderful life". It's written in gold foil letters, and the box is covered in this beautiful textured paper. I promise I'm not a cat but I just absolutely adore fancy boxes :). Now I'm done marveling at the lid I can lift it to find: a LOT of goodies. A big fat pot of body cream, a huge canister of shower foam, a spritzer of 'hair & body mist' and a container with 'fragrance sticks'. This is SO MUCH! And all of them are Indian Rose and Almond Oil scented. I sprayed some of the hair & body mist on my hand just to get an idea and it smells amazing! It's flowery but not overly sweet, and somewhat earthy which I suspect is the almond. Both of them combine to just make it smell really fresh and light. I'm really not super knowledgeable about fragrances so I don't quite know how to describe it any better than that, but I really really like it!

I've used shower foam from Rituals before but in another smell, so I know I'm going to love it, and I even suspect this one might be nicer since I like the smell more. I actually prefer body cream to lotion, so the big jar of it is really lovely. I adore body mist, but I've not thought to use it on my hair before, this hair and body mist is made for it so that'll be nice! I've actually never used any fragrance sticks before, so I'm excited to try this out :). I have to think where to put them though, I think putting it in the bedroom might be nice to help me think more about relaxing and putting my phone down! Being on my phone when I should be reading or sleeping is such a bad habit so hopefully this will help to break it :). Santa, this is amazing, thank you so much <3.

I didn't fail to notice that next to the big red box there was also a small grey and yellow box in the bag. It says "hydrate & repair", and inside are two little tubes. One says 'recovery' and the other says 'instant care'. This is just amazing! My hands are always in quite bad shape because I do a lot of crafting, but since the pandemic it's been so much worse because I've of course been washing my hands a lot... I pretty much immediately grab the yellow 'repair' lotion because I need it so bad! This also really smells so fresh and good, it's wonderful. I think it'll take a few applications to really do some repair but I can already feel it working in the time it took me to type this. I think my santa just gifted me a new resolution: to take better care of my hands. I certainly should, and with this I'm certain that I will!

Thank you so much santa! This is absolutely wonderful and I will do my best to use it as intended to take care of my hands and ditch my phone and smell the (Indian) roses (and almonds) a bit more! This is a wonderful start of the year, and using this will be a frequent and wonderful reminder of my new years resolutions. Thank you <3