A note from Mail Order Mystery founder Suzanne Matczuk:
We’ve got some big news! It’s our tenth anniversary, woo-hoo! Ten years ago today we sold our very first mystery. I still remember shrieking and jumping up and down when we saw that first order come in.Â
So much has changed since then. Our kids have grown up with Mail Order Mystery. It seems like just yesterday I was pushing the stroller through the snow trying to get to the store before it closed and I had mashed carrots stuck in my hair and the squeaky giraffe was on the sidewalk half a block back and someone was crying - it might have been me - and some woman stopped me on the street to tell me to enjoy every moment because it goes by just like that. And I wanted to scream, but even then I knew she was right. It really has gone by just like that.Â
I wrote Treasure Hunt, our very first mystery, for our kids. Today, our oldest is away at university and our youngest is in high school. It’s hard to even remember their first words, their first haircuts, the first time I realized they were too heavy to carry. What a dizzying, sorrowful pleasure it is to see our kids grow up and step out into the world.
Mail Order Mystery has grown up too. We have moved three times because we keep running out of space. Every year we add more people to the team and every holiday season we prepare for more and more orders.
But one thing is still the same. We assemble and personalize every single mystery by hand, just like we did ten years ago. Every kid who receives a Mail Order Mystery is still invited, by name, to crack a case, accept a mission, stop a villain or track down their long-lost pirate treasure.
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Kids are heroes of their very own stories. They get letters from pirates, princesses, dragons, detectives and spies. There are clues to solve, ciphers to crack, and objects to keep, like keys, coins, necklaces, fingerprint reports, photographs and pirate maps. And we know - because our customers have been telling us for ten years - a Mail Order Mystery is a magical gift that kids will never forget.  Â
And this year, just like every other year, our team has worked hard for months to prepare for the holidays, but there is only so much we can do at one time. Because every mystery is personalized, we can’t pre-package or mass produce. If all of you wait until the first week of December to place your orders we won’t be able to keep up. We never do a Black Friday sale so if you are thinking of ordering a mystery, please don’t wait. You can find our guide to choosing the perfect mystery here.But most importantly, thank you. Thank you for believing in us and what we do. Thank you for believing in your kids, and for believing in their extraordinary imaginations and their love for adventure. It’s been ten years and we are so grateful that we are still here to share in the adventure. Here’s to many more!
