OK. I thought I was being helpful when I composed a rambling list of my favorite things:

Likes: cheese, optical illusions, science, upcycling, disc sports, music, fractals, books, strategic board games, tea, oddities, cultural foods/snacks, creative alcohols, handmade items, intricacy, nature, obscure sports, classic editions, cats, maps/geography, astrogeology, flowing water, crystallinity, savories, hot sauce, photographs, Iceland, webcomics, chocolate, erosion, recursion.

Dislikes: cherries, asshats, politics, ketchup.

And, to be fair, my santa did an excellent job of picking out stuff I'd like. I received a high-quality frisbee, a head massager "to relax that busy head of [mine]", and the pièce de résistance: my very own copy of Carcassone, which is an excellent board game. Which I happen to already own... but there's no way my santa could have found that out without going to extreme creepy levels of stalking. Plus, I am sure it will still get plenty of use among my board game group (two games at once, baby!).

So why do I feel like I'm being trolled, you ask? Well, it so happens that my regular Arbitrary Day match also got me Carcassone: http://redditgifts.com/gallery/gift/tea-and-gamage-west-coast/

And on top of that, my gift to my own AD+ giftee was a homemade version of... you guessed it: http://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/wkxrz/what_my_arbitrary_day_giftee_will_be_receiving/

So, to both my santas: Well done. You cracked my code. Or trolled me in an epic (and generous) way. Thanks to you, this will go down as one of my most memorable exchanges ever!