thewoodz

Hi All
Well I hope everyone had a great Christmas and here's to us all having a good 2007.

One question now its coming up to 12th night.

Can anyone give me any advice regarding taking Christmas decorations in Oz. Usually they just get put in the loft, but hopefully we will be spending Christmas in Oz next year and so i thought i would sort them out and give away any that may not be suitable.

What about outdoor lights?
Artificial christmas tress - we were planning on replacing ours this year in the sales but will not bother if it may cause a prob at the other end.

Any other advice or thoughts would be appreciated.

All the best
N x

cartel

Hi,

I don't have the answers but hope someone does reply as we are in the same situation as you.

I am assuming baubles, tree decs would not be a problem. And we have a couple of garlands we decorate each year over the mantelpiece.

I will watch this thread with interest. Have to start thinking about what to keep and what to give away!

Carol

Streaks

Hi there, just to say I noticed in another thread (sorry can't remember which one) regarding shipping that some people have advised not to take trees with pine cones on them (artificial or real cones) as they have had to be destroyed along with other decorations with them on, other people have taken them with no problems I guess it's the luck of the draw.
S xx

temptininnit

Two shippers have told us that fake trees and decorations are all ok, however they will NOT accept pine cones even if they are painted. The shipping rep said that the inspectors can be very thorough with you if they find things they don't like in any of the boxes. It seems sensible to the pine cones off the tree/garlands.

I don't know if I want to smuggle some of my malts in though.

toon williams

We have Doree Bonner coming Tuesday to pack us up and they said trees and all decorations are fine, other than pine cones!! Not allowed to take those! So I threw all ours away today!!

Sleeping Beauty

little story about this one

my sister came out in may 2006, she knew about the xmas decs etc, brought some tree decs out, but also brought with her a very small (6 inches high) tree, which goes in her son's bedroom. she didnt realise, but it had tiny pine cones on it. customs picked up on this and wanted $350 to have it fumigated or $90 to have it destroyed. it cost 5 pounds!!! :scared:


sorry, it wasnt tiny pine cones, it was a little wooden/bark base. even so, it cost them $90

thewoodz

well thanks for all comments so far.
i will de-pine cone every thing then and hope for the best......
unless someone of course knows different

Vernons

Hi
We had a good old sort through and just brought ball balls, tinsel and stars etc. We got rid of the fake tree and anything made of pine cones. We also brought our lights but just gave it all a good clean. It all got through customs no problem.

thewoodz

thank you.
i have decided to pack the balls (!) and tinsel and lights and leave the new tree till we get there. i have a couple of wooden ornaments but i hope these should be OK as i'm sure i read somewhere they are more concerned with outdoor wooden items

northernbird

De-pine cone everything and you should be fine. Personally I wouldn't bother with the lights because they are cheap as chips here and anyway once your bulbs go you might not be able to get replacements, we couldn't for ours.

thewoodz

thx NB - i hadn't thought of bulb replacement....
thats why i love BE gets u looking and thinking at all alternatives

Bix

It's the quarantine people AQIS (not customs) that inspect everything.

Have doubts about anything animal or vegetable.
If in doubt try to do without.

I did hear AQIS were requesting people to bring more Easter decorations as they are overstocked on Christmas items

Poppy 2

We packed a fake tree with pine cones attached :scared: ! I wouldn't care, because nothing arrived before Christmas and still hasn't!, the kids pleaded for a tree and we ended up buying another one with pine cones which only cost $59!

I can't believe that we are probably going to be charged to destroy the tree! We only packed it because we thought we might not have time to get stuff before Christmas! Oh well, you live and learn!

THey must be coining it in, charging to throw stuff onto a big bonfire or whatever it is they do with it, they must be laughing all the way to the bank!
Just hope they don't find anything else, but will keep you posted.

Good luck with the packing anyway!

All the best

thewoodz

thanks for all the replies!!!
just found out we got the visa's!!! so will have to start thinking in earnest about what we are taking

northernbird

our friends did this too and AQIS here in Perth just chopped the pine cones off and gave them the tree, didn't charge them for it either so far.