ok this is how clever amazon is:
because one item was the Burning Crusade upgrade for
WOW [due out Jan 17th] they decided to hold a load of the other stuff back and post it out with Burning Crusade - so unless I had checked id have been stuffed!
As it was once I removed BC upgrade from the kart it automatically wanted to dispatch my other items - but not in time for Christmas.
Moral of the tale?
Dont pre-order a agame as part of a mass shop
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr