Anticipation

When I first go the notification that my santa had shipped a gift to me, I had to do a double take - What were the odds that I would be matched with a secret Santa and giftee 1/4 of the way around the world in a similar part of Finland? My local post office never leaves packages at my home, so I was taunted Friday by the "out for delivery" notification knowing I wouldn't be able to pick it up until Saturday.

The Package

The postal worker slid the envelope across the counter and gave me a look of mild contempt as she asked me to sign for it. The customs form was facing up so I tried putting my sleuthing skills to work to glean any information that would explain her expression, but I came up empty (Picture #1). Perhaps she was just upset to be working on a Saturday morning when it was already a very pleasant 64°F (aka 18°C if you don't live in the United States, Bahamas or Belize). As I picked up my gift and gleefully strolled back into the sunshine, unencumbered by an apparently depressing weekend workday, I noticed Snoo (Picture #2) and that my gift had a reasonable weight to it - 1.08kg according to the packaging. Unable to convert this to a more familiar measurement in pounds, I proceeded to rack my brain for any notion of how much this might be. I never had chemistry, one of the few courses which would require an American to learn SI, but I remembered that 1 KG was supposed to be related to 1 liter of water, and that it was more than 1 pound. Thusly, it must weigh somewhere between a cheeseburger and a half empty bottle of soda. I hurried home to see what it could possibly be.

Opening the Envelope

I arrived home and decided that if I wanted to take pictures my best bet would be to sit at my small dining table where I would receive a modicum of sunlight accented by the direct overhead lighting of my ceiling fan. Alas, while this greatly helped my ability to see what I was doing, it did not compensate for my inability to hold still and take consistently focused pictures from my camera phone. Having already comfortably situated myself with my first cup of coffee and gift in front of me, I timidly examined the packaged for a structural weakness or lethal vulnerability I could exploit to avoid the burden of standing up and walking to the kitchen for my scissors which I had so absentmindedly left on the counter 10 feet away (I believe that's somewhere between 2 and 5 meters for the rest of the world). My slothfulness was greatly rewarded when I discovered a small red thread to be used as a ripcord. I pulled as though I was starting an archaic lawnmower (kids, ask your parents about this. Before we had electric lawnmowers, but after your grandparents' mechanical mowers, we had gasoline (petrol) powered beasts that would startup in a glorious cloud of smoke after hours of pull start attempts). Having successfully vanquished the packaging which was my foe, I glimpsed my reward (Picture #3). My thoughts skipped past the carefully wrapped gift and straight to the stacks of paper beneath it. Surely, such a large number of papers would be important. What was written in this manifest? Perhaps cautions about the importance of not getting it wet, or a particular photosensitivity or worse- feeding it after midnight? I wanted to be sure I was prepared for any dangers the red paper with white flowers might be holding back with twine.

The Documents - Part 1

I carefully slid the contents of the envelope out onto the table (#4) and admired my Santa's handiwork (#5). Every time I attempt to use ribbon or twine in my gift wrapping, this is what I hope the end result to look like (but so often it fails). I didn't immediately recognize the gnomes as a postcard, the back (#6) reads "Hyvää Joulua ja Onnellista Uutta Vuotta. Merry Christmas. By your Secret Santa". Back to the papers. The first page is separate from the rest, obviously this will be the instruction sheet to begin with:

| Hey █████ !

|

| Look through the stuff I sent you and try to figure out what they are, then come back to this letter.

|

| Ok, done?

| First, I wnasitihenitonedsofinsl...

"WAIT!!" I frantically yelled to myself. "There's spoilers ahead! You can't keep reading this until you've opened the gift. You're going to have to forge ahead without any preparation for what contents are within." I was right of course, I'm always right when I have an internal monologue - if not the "me" that started it, then at least the "me" that finished it will win. He has to. So I mentally prepared myself for the test ahead of me. I needed to focus and have all my capacities about me - surely this was an important quest I was about to embark upon. I couldn't fall stereotype to the worldview that Americans know nothing, I must do my best to identify everything contained within my gift before returning to this letter to retrieve the answers.

The Gift

I brewed myself a second cup of coffee, a rarity for me, but a necessity to prepare my brain for the potential puzzles alluded to in the opening lines of the letter. The jester stared back at me, winking coyly as if a mix of wishing me luck and smirking at my inevitable failure (#7). For some reading this, it may be instantly apparent what this is, but not me. Obviously this was a shirt, but there had to be more to it - some meaning or significance to this particular shirt. It's a cool design, and it definitely sums up my personality a bit. Even without yet knowing the significance of it, I absolutely love it. My mind wanders, "was my sister in on this?" she knows I juggle and even went so far as to make me a similar jester's hat one year. We had a friend study abroad in Helsinki, perhaps she...? No. it's improbably unlikely this has anything to do with my affinity for acting like a clown. There are a few tags on it - the size I wear, the words "JOKERIT OFFICIAL PRODUCT" with the same jester joker on it - this means it must be a logo or character for something, perhaps a sporting team or children's game from Finland (I ruled out video game on the basis that they are distributed rather ubiquitously globally) and finally a sleeve tag with the letters "K - L - H" separated by an "X" pattern, perhaps hockey sticks? HL could be Hockey League, but it seems rather clearly that the K and L come before the H. K.... League of Hockey? I'll come back to it, there's obviously quite a bit wrapped inside the shirt.

Sweet Treats!

After unwrapping the T-Shirt which was swaddling the rest of my gift and protecting it, I laid it out and arranged my prizes so that I may study what each one is (#8). So far, I was confident I had correctly identified a postcard and shirt as such, and even gone so far as to tentatively record the shirt in my mind as "European hockey team logo T-Shirt". Furthermore, even if my evaluation of the shirt was incorrect, I knew without a doubt that the patch was in fact a patch, and of the same logo (aside: I really like the logo and know I'll wear the shirt soon, but I haven't decided if I'll put the patch by itself on my daypack or with my other patches on my quilt. I'm inclined to put him on my daypack because I want to show him off, but I worry he'll be lonely without any friends on there with him). After everything was arranged and ready for examination I realized I had a cool assortment of Finnish treats (candies and possibly non-sweet snacks), it made me happy to receive such a thoughtful gift, but also cognizant of how I had failed to consider delectable treats in gifting. Surveying the treats I saw: * "KarlFazer Milk & white chocolate" - seems self explanatory. Also, individually wrapped. I'll have one now. * "Tyrkisk Peber" - trying to pronounce this I get something that sounds like Ivan Vanko saying "Turkish Pepper".. I'm positive I'm butchering the language to no end, and this name is probably meaningless beyond the fact that it has flames behind it and may very well be pepper flavored. The back of the package reads "Too Hot to handle?" and has a diagram of flames from mildest to hottest. I'm really excited that according to the chart the "original" flavor I received is the hottest they make. I can't wait to see how "hot" compares between Northern Europe and Southern California. * "Super Salmiakki" - looks like some sort of black licorice and possibly orange flavored candy? I don't get any more information from the package besides "Super" which I take to mean that somebody in marketing thinks this is great stuff. * "Kismet" - I really hope this is a chocolate wafer candy like it looks! I'm imaging something like a Twix or Kit Kat, but it looks even crunchier, which is exciting because that's my favorite part of those 2 candies.

Everything looks great and I'm thrilled with my gift. Time to check my answers and see how I did on guessing everything.

The Documents - Part 2

| Ok, done?

(Yes, this time I was actually done and ready to read all about these cool things I just got for Christmas)

| First I want to say sorry, I wish I could've sent everything I wanted but because of the restrictions in shipping I can't. :(

Hey, there's no need to apologize /u/bananizombi - you did an awesome job with this gift, Thank You! America has some (stupid) strict regulations on what can or can't be sent in the mail - and it's different in each of the 50 states even within the same country! Here's what the letter had to say about the items I received.

| So let me explain what's in the package:

|

| Tyrkisk Peber - It's a strong liquorice candy flavored with ammonium chloride and pepper. Very popular in Finland & Scandinavia. (No Finland is not part of Scandinavia even tho some say so)

(about the only thing I guess correctly here was the pepper)

| Super Salmiakki - Simple Salty Liquorice candy. Really popular in Finland, really hard to find outside the Nordic countries, Netherlands & Northern Germany. There is an endless list of "salmiakki"products in Finland. In my opinion this one is the best tasting salmiakki candy there is.

I guessed licorice, but I see no mention of oranges. And I definitely did not guess salty.

| Fazer Milk & White Chocolate Box - Fazer chocolate is probably the biggest thing in Finland. Some even say it's the best chocolate in the world. One reason it tasted different from other chocolates is because they use real milk, not milk powder in it.

| Fun fact: Fazer produces about 65 million kilos of chocolate every year. That's about 143 million pounds.

| Kismet chocolate bar with Marianne flavour. Kismet is made of crisp waffle and nougat covered in milk chocolate. But this one has also Marianne candy flavour in it. Marianne is a peppermint chocolate candy.

I can't believe I didn't guess peppermint given the red and white stripes like a peppermint candy cane!

| All those above are made by Fazer.

|

| You're probably wondering what the heck that t-shirt and patch is.

| Well, the "joker" logo is the logo for a Finnish ice hockey team Jokerit, playing in the Kontinental Hockey League. You said blue is your favourite colour so when I saw that shirt I thout it would be fun to send a tshirt that most likely no one in California, possibly in the whole continent has. And hey that logo is pretty sweet, right? Most likely people wouldn't even recognize it as a hockey teams logo.

I think I guessed this one pretty square on. Didn't expect the KLH to really be KHL, or to stand for "Kontinental", but is a super rad, unique shirt and I love it!

Oh! And the rest of the papers turned out to be a homemade brochure (#9) all about Finland! My santa obviously spent some time putting this all together, and I learned a lot about Finnish culture and history I might not have otherwise taken the time to go research. There's a section on foods (#10), a map (#11), political and military history (#12-15), Fun Facts (#16-18), Famous Finns and Finish companies (#19-24), pop culture (#25 & 26), and Basic Finnish phrases (#27). Some of my favorites tidbits come from the page "Fun Facts".

| The many meanings of Vittu, the most common Finnish swear word

a subsection dedicated to the myriad meanings and conjugations including vittumaisuuttaan which apparently means "out of pure dickishness"

| poronkusema - the distance a reindeer can walk before needing to urinate.

If I ever make it to Finland, I hope to time it with Helsinki's "Restaurant Day" which sounds incredible. All in all, I'm super stoked for the gift I received and want to say "Kiitos! and Hyvää Joulua!" to my santa (and anteeksi for pronouncing those wrong)

TL;DR

My secret santa sent me a really cool T-Shirt and for a hockey team from Helsinki, plus some awesome Finnish candies and a homemade guide to Finland. Also, if you didn't even try to skim past anything before this vituttaa you vitun vittu.