ABOUT SHIPPING AND DELIVERY . . .

Why don’t you offer free shipping?

Please be patient with our shipping fees.

When we began First Christmas, we had no idea how difficult it is to ship a product that is long, thin, and relatively lightweight. We simply do not qualify for any postal categories that get a price break.

Most “3-day Air” services provide a free triangular tube – the container that best protects our paper during shipping. Since we do not have to buy a special tube and/or box, this method is as reasonably priced as ground rates. Priority Mail, through the U. S. Postal Service (USPS), is the least expensive 3-day service and therefore our most economical option.

Although our shipping fees may seem high, they do not recover all of our costs. “Handling” is real, and it is expensive! We have to pay someone to read your order, record it in our system, tape a tri-tube together, locate the right item(s), cushion those products in the tri-tube, print out and apply a label, and then coordinate a pick-up with the postal carrier.

Most of our shipping fees (which are based on a combination of how much product is ordered, what the total order weighs, and how far the package will travel) recover less than half of what we pay out for “handling.”

When will my First Christmas Nativity wrapping paper arrive?

Since we are a small family business, we process orders and place them in the mail once a week most of the year. Orders received during the week are processed each Friday and mailed on Saturday. Therefore, you can expect your order to arrive 3-6 days after the Saturday following placement of your order.

From mid-November through mid-December, our busiest part of the Christmas season, we process orders daily and ship products within 24 hours of notice that an order has cleared the PayPal system. (To receive your wrapping paper right away, please make sure you have made a deposit in your PayPal account.) Most orders placed during this time will arrive about 5 business days after your order is placed.

If your order remains undelivered in the timeframe described above, please Contact Us and we will explore the delay in your delivery.

Although we handle December orders as efficiently as possible, we cannot guarantee a pre-Christmas delivery. If receipt of your gift wrap products before Christmas is essential, please choose the Express Mail or Federal Express Overnight mail option when ordering your product. We charge extra for this service.

Does First Christmas ship international orders?

We welcome orders from outside of the continental United States. However, our website does not provide for international transactions due to differences in regulations and possible tariffs and/or freight charges. If you wish to order from outside the United States, please e-mail your order through Contact Us. We will process your transaction separately and notify you of what charges to expect. All overseas customers must be aware that shipping fees, tariffs, duties, and taxes levied in your respective countries will need to be paid by you.

ABOUT RETURNS . . .

What if my wrapping paper is damaged when it arrives?

Please Contact Us immediately if your order was damaged during shipping so we can ship a new order or arrange a refund. We will give you instructions appropriate for the situation.

How do I make a return to First Christmas?

Please Contact Us right away if you are not happy with the product since returns must be mailed back to us within 7 business days of receiving your order. We will give you instructions at that time for returning your order and receiving your refund of the purchase price. There can be no refund of shipping and handling charges.

ABOUT PRICING . . .

How does First Christmas charge for shipping and handling?

The prices for products shown on our web site do not include shipping and handling. We have devised standard shipping fees for most orders, based on the amount of product ordered, the weight of the packages we offer, and the average distance an order is likely to travel. Certain one-time handling fees, like pulling our products from storage, assembling a triangular tube and placing an order within it, then printing the shipping label, may also be partially covered in our shipping charge.

We have tried to keep shipping costs at a minimum while employing an option that both maximizes protection of the unfolded product and offers reasonable timeliness in delivery. Our Best Value Sets and other bulk orders minimize your cost for both the product and the shipping and handling.

An extra handling charge may be applied to particular orders – for example, to orders delivered to Hawaii or Alaska. On occasion, when a large order falls into an unusually heavy weight class or an order must be delivered to a remote destination, other shipping charges may apply. We will contact the customer by phone or e-mail to arrange extra payment.

If you want to help people celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ during Christmas, why is your product more expensive than many other gift wrap products?

We learned many valuable lessons about producing Christmas wrapping paper as we tried to establish our family business on a solid footing during 2009. The short answer is that our specialty sheets, which are low-priced in the world of high quality gift wrap, are the best-value product we can offer our customers while we grow large enough to place bulk orders with our manufacturers.

A longer explanation involves the increasingly global economy and the changing the norms in many areas of business, including printing in the U.S. Almost all wrapping paper sold in the United States is now produced in China at 40%-60% of the cost of printing it in the United States. (Interestingly, only a small fraction of that paper is gift wrap. Most wrapping paper is printed with company logos and is used for protecting products, like computer parts, while they are being shipped from the place of manufacture to various wholesale or retail outlets.)

At the best U.S. prices, producing gift wrap in rolls is a much more expensive undertaking in low quantities than is printing it on large sheets. Printers cannot economically run the kind of printing presses that produce rolls for short runs. Because we cannot yet afford large orders of rolls, our roll prices include very little mark-up.

In addition to paper costs and press time, First Christmas also commissions special artwork since the birth of Christ is no longer a common theme for Christmas wrapping paper. These and other factors make it difficult for us to match the prices you might be used to paying for gift wrap, especially at large chain stores. However, your support during our beginning years of small offerings will bring more Christ-centered designs and more affordable products in years to come.

ABOUT OUR PRODUCTS . . .

What are specialty/designer sheets?

Our gift wrap sheets are a form of high quality gift wrap sold in many places in the world as the standard wrapping paper product. In the U.S., a lower quality version of these sheets is often sold in stores or online as one or two folded sheets of wrapping paper in a plastic bag intended for wrapping a single gift each. Our higher quality sheets are never folded, and our larger sheets wrap multiple gifts.

Our First Christmas unfolded designer sheets measure 20”x30”and are meant for wrapping one medium-sized gift with unique and elegant designs that emphasize the birth of Jesus Christ. Our larger unfolded specialty sheets measure 26”x38” and feature specially commissioned Christ-centered artwork in a repeat pattern. Two such sheets are 16” longer than an average 5’ roll of Christmas wrapping paper and will wrap one large gift or two medium-sized gifts or 3-6 smaller presents. All First Christmas gift wrap sheets are printed on 60# coated, gloss text, the thickest wrapping paper available that is pliable enough to crease well at the corners of your gift as you wrap it.

How much variance should I expect between the colors of your actual wrapping paper and the colors I see on your website?

The true colors of our Christmas wrapping paper are impossible to represent online, since different monitors display color with a wide degree of variation. All we can promise is that our artists have carefully chosen the colors for each design and that within a pattern the colors are likely as harmonious as what you see on your screen.

Will First Christmas offer gift bags, tissue, ribbon, and other accessories in the future?

First Christmas will consider new products as demand and solid business growth warrant it.

Will First Christmas Nativity wrapping paper be available in stores?

We would love to make our gift wrap more widely available. Since even small stores tend to order their Christmas wrapping paper in the spring for delivery in the fall, those stores and First Christmas need to become aware of each other early in a given year for an arrangement to be made. If you are aware of local gift shops, Christian book stores, or other retail outlets that might want to order our products for next Christmas season, please Contact Us with a name and contact information as soon as possible. Our U.S. manufactured Christmas wrapping paper will probably not be offered in large retail chains that provide unusually low prices on rolls.

Can my organization use First Christmas Nativity wrapping paper as a fundraiser?

Churches, schools, and other non-profit organizations should feel free to Contact Us with proposals for using our Christ-centered gift wrap to raise funds for important causes. Before making plans, however, you might want to keep the following in mind:

• First Christmas is both small and new, and it is family-owned and run. We are not in a position to donate our paper, even for the best fundraising purposes. Our wrapping paper can be made available to interested organizations at wholesale prices that will vary according to how much product is requested.

• First Christmas has not yet developed a fundraiser package with related brochures or other helpful materials. Your organization would need to create its own price sheets, order forms, etc.

• Wrapping paper is a product that is easily damaged. Since bulk orders of our paper must be shipped flat, you will need volunteers to roll the appropriate number of sheets of each design into a plastic sleeve or bag that protects each order during delivery or pick-up. Even adults experienced in "kitting" can find this activity challenging.

• Because large wrapping paper companies can print items overseas in huge quantities at a fraction of the U.S. price, many people are used to buying gift wrap products at unrealistically low prices. Make sure you can count on enough customers who will want to purchase our products to make your fundraising efforts worthwhile.

PRIVACY POLICY

What is your Privacy Policy?

It is simple and straight-forward. You shared your contact information with First Christmas, LLC for the purpose of purchasing our Nativity gift wrap and making it possible for us to ship it to you. We respect your privacy and will not sell or distribute your contact information or any information about you to any other vendor, advertiser, listserve, or other outside entity. In the expectation (and hope) that your purchase indicates a possible ongoing interest in our products, we may contact you occasionally to advise you of new products or special prices. If you do not wish this contact, please let us know through Contact Us or click “Unsubscribe” at the bottom of a First Christmas e-mail, and we will remove your name from our list.