Hello, people from Secret Santa!

I must say that this has been an incredible experience thanks to my most thoughtful Secret Santa!

I am not accostumed to receiving gifts at this time of the year. It has never been a tradition in my family, so I was really excited to participate in this exchange. I didn't really raised my hopes up because I didn't had a positive experience in the past exchanges, but I was happy at the opportunity nevertheless, because in any case, preparing a gift for a stranger is one of the most fulfilling experiences one can have.

Little did I know that I had been matched with such a great person.

She made me a two parts gift!

The first part consisted in a Zoo Parentship to the dingoes of the Zoo of Taronga, or as in my SS words, an Aussie version of your red wolf. After checking my Reddit history I couldn't find anything related to red wolves so the fact that she actually found out that red wolves are my favourite animal is evidence of the effort she had put into making the perfect gift that I received.

With the mail containing the parentship information there were several documents about the dingo itself, about their history and the problems their currently facing. As with red wolves, there is a great problem with hybridization that's reducing the pure dingo population and pushing them into danger of extinction. :(

I will leave you guys a link if you want to support these cool guys from the Taronga Zoo :) http://taronga.org.au/

And this one if you want to know more about or help with the cause of the red wolves (there's about or little more than 100 of them left) http://redwolves.com/rwc/index.html

Continuing with the gifts, today I finally received the package from my SS which is the second part of the gift.

Correo Argentino were experience problems because of a strike and they didn't delivered it until today. Totally not SS's fault, those guys are always delivering mail and packages weeks or even months overdue.

It must have been of the most exciting experience that I ever had and I'm not exagerating. When I opened I found the most adorable Koala that I have ever seen and immediately fell in love with it. He had a bag with chocolate balls around his neck that I thoroughly enjoy (only had two, the rest I saved them to share). I still have to name it and as of now is resting with Montblanc, my polar bear, and Remy, my red wolf.

There was also a lovely Holiday Card with a drawing of Santa Claus with a personal message written inside by my SS herself. :)

Along with the Koala and the card there were six other packages wrapped with Christmas themed paper.

I started with the three little ones. They contained more candy! Milky bar buttons! Or so they were. They melted, haha, but it made it all the more fun to eat them (or it)! I received Jaffas and Tim Tams but I still have to try those (and update when I do so).

Then I proceeded to open the three bigger packages!

The first one contained four postcard with delightful illustrations by Lynn Naistmith and a holder! If anyone is wondering they are fairy penguins, brushtail lemurs, wallabies and koalas! It's a shame I couldn't find more about the artist but I'll keep looking and see if I can update with some more information since I really liked her work!

The second package contianed a cloth wallposter with a tribal themed painting called 'The Ceremonial Hunt'. It came with a short tale that I really enjoyed. It seems that it's part of something called 'Tales of my Grandmother's Dreamtime' by Naiura, and I'll definitely have to check that out since it really piqued my interest.

And last, but by no means least, a set of Derwent Sketching materials! With very high quality pencils, charcoal and graphite! It seems that my SS found the drawings I posted on Reddit. These are going to come in handy and I'll definitely have to try them out. I will now be able to sketch the dingoes of Taronga. :)

Those were the wonderful gifts my SS prepared with the help of her lovely husband! I hope you guys had a wonderful Christmas and that you had a Secret Santa experience as great as the one you made for me!

Edit: (for some reason the text editor didn't save all that I had written).