Eiffel Towers ! ! Lots of Them ! !

We get these beautiful Austrian snowglobes every year for Christmas, but some of them are not overtly Christmasy, like this beautiful Eiffel Tower. We ran out of them last year in February, and spent the last 10 months trying to get more. It's true they can't ship them from Austria when it's cold, because if the water freezes - the glass breaks. But once April rolled around we thought they would arrive soon, and so did the customers who had ordered them off our website. (Evidently we are the only store in the whole United States who sells them - or so you would think!) Anyway, the distributor thought she could get them for us by May . . . . then June . .. then August .. .then October. The special orders piled up and it started to seem like an episode of the Twilight Zone - the distributor, who had been working with the company for years, could get no response from them, no reason why they would not ship her the globes. It was very very frustrating for all concerned; the customers who wanted them, we Joie de Vivre denizens, our poor distributor who received several anguished emails from us . . . but - today was the red letter day. They arrived, and are already winging their way to homes across the country from New Orleans to Nebraska to California and more. We were happy enough to break out the fake champagne (not so "joie de vive" but we had a lot of work to do) So all is good- though there is this little question in the back of our minds . . . is this going to happen again next year?