Playfish have advised the following;

Due to some server performance issues, gifting is no longer checked real time. This means that you may not see the gifts immediately when they are sent to you – but there may be quite some hours delay at this time.

This was done as we were seeing some performance issues, this it NOT a permanent change, and we hope to change it back to the way it is meant to be as soon as we can, but it is likely to be after the weekend.