I'm a bit long-winded, so feel free to stick to the pictures if you don't want to read everything...

After being stiffed for Arbitrary Day and having a lot of financial issues, I was very reluctant to participate this year. But I had such a good experience last year that I decided to give it a shot and hope for the best. And I'm glad I did!

When I woke up yesterday, I was greeted with a box from Amazon. A big box. Addressed to my Reddit username. Knowing this must be my Secret Santa gift, I excitedly tore it open to find a big canvas-like bag with a yellow ribbon around it. As I went to open the bag, I noticed a small tag, which said "Open me second!!!" Nooooo! I was so close! And the corner of the box inside peaking out of the bag ever so slightly! Alas, my Santa clearly wanted this to be the grand finale of sorts, so I put everything back in the box like a good giftee. It did drive me a little bit crazy, though, especially knowing that there was another gift on the way.

Fast-forward to today. Today sucked. I'm a greeting card vendor and as you can imagine, Christmas is one of our biggest holidays of the year, so work has me completely exhausted. And today was especially bad. But when I got home, my wife told me that I had a package waiting for me. It was my other gift! I tore open the box, ripped off the wrapping paper, and uncovered an awesome book called A Child's Introduction To The Night Sky. I had mentioned in my profile that I enjoy anything that I can share with my son, so this is perfect. It's full of astronomy stories and facts, constellation stickers, and a handy star chart!

Next up was the big gift. I pulled the box out of the bag and my eyes lit up when I saw the name printed on the side: Celestron! A freakin' telescope! A PowerSeeker 50AZ to be exact. As nice as my old telescope is, the poor thing is falling apart, so this is perfect for us. And I don't remember if I mentioned this in my profile or not, but we have an amazing view of the night sky where I live, so this will get a lot of use! Sadly, we've been having storms (although we desperately need them) so the sky is too cloudy tonight, but I'm going to take my new telescope out as soon we have a clear view.

Thank you so much for gifts, Santa! You turned my crappy day into an awesome one and I'm really grateful for that. And, more importantly, I appreciate that you took my son into consideration and gave us things that we can use together. You're awesome!