My wife and I are flying AA to Ireland next week. We tend to travel pretty light, usually just one checked piece of luggage and a carry-on each. On the return trip, I'd like to bring back a few things, but don't want to deal with carrying the extra luggage on the trip out. (And no, it isn't Waterford crystal, or anything else breakable - it's actually just some cereal, and probably a sweater)

I'm having a hard time finding anything on AA's site that covers anything like this, so I'm hoping someone here might know about rules/regs/do's/don'ts for shipping back a few things in a cardboard box as part of checked luggage. A search here didn't turn anything up, either, but I may not have used the right terminology.

Any help/advice appreciated.