Christmas comes but once a year - or does it?

The saying does say, Christmas comes but once a year! However, today Tuesday 7 October it was Christmas for me!! Our Postman could not believe it and wondered if it was my birthday?

Last month my favourite team, Boomers and Beyond Etsy Street Team (BBEST for short) had a swap. The theme as that of butterflies. The reason being that my avatar is that of a butterfly and I stood down last month from being the group's leader. With the team now 300 strong I decided that to continue on my own was taking up too much of my time. So, I have handed the leader's baton over to three lovely ladies, Chauncey, Sixsisters and Joonie. It was their idea to base the theme on my avie as a thank you! To make the swap even more interesting it was decided to put a twist at the end. That twist was revealed on the last day of the swap and meant everyone was told which member to send their swap to!

My lucky swap came from Dayna from Scottieacres in the form of a lovely mauve sweatshirt with an amazing decoration consisting of a Christmas tree collage adorned with different coloured butterflies along with colourful jewels with the tree being topped by a bright yellow star. An awful lot of work went into this gem! I have tried to take a close up photograph to show you all the lovely butterflies.

Thank you so much Dayna!!!!

The swap I made went to another member who I cannot name yet nor can I show you what it was - I will as soon as I know they have received it safely! Otherwise it won't be a secret or a surprise anymore so that will be another post.

Meanwhile, for me there was another twist! Our three new leaders chatted amongst themselves and decided to show their swaps at the last moment. However, their twist was that their items were not for swapping but were being sent as a gift to me!!!!!! That was such a generous idea and today I received not only Dayna's sweatshirt but also a wonderful plaque from Chaunce.

First of all Chaunce, apologies for the lowsy picture but this is gorgeous!!!!! At the top are the words... Thanks PQ. You're the bbest! Underneath a basket of beautiful hydrangeas with some butterflies hovering. It came with a very handy stand.

Thank you Chaunce!

Then I opened the next package! Again, the camera has not really done the painting proper justice. This most beautiful butterfly came from Six and will find itself being framed and hung on my wall.

Thank you Six!

Now I had to ask Terry to take a picture of me wearing and holding my wonderful pressies, didn't I! Hopefully the pressies will detract from my scruffy appearance, no make up, messy hair, yukky!!!

For good measure, and I know you will be able to laugh with me here.......

I asked Terry to take a picture of me holding my new treasures in our new shower!!! We haven't actually used it yet since we want to wait until the whole shower is totally complete before doing so. But I just couldn't resist a picture in the shower, so check this out and have a giggle!

I also received another present but I want to thank the sender before I mention anything about that in this blog post. Gosh, another post to look forward to!!!! The excitement must be overwhelming.

However, my team..... and especially those mentioned above... You are simply the BBEST!