Since the 100th Exchange had the theme of "what RedditGifts means to you", I signed up on behalf of my mother, because I believe it's more about giving and making others happy.

My gifters went above and beyond to bring this theme to life. As you can read below, they gifted my aunt (initially intended for my mother) with an entire spa day. She was so grateful and so was I! Then, these kind people contacted me again and said that they were sending a second package of stuff for my mother! I cried, I was so touched. Today, it arrived.

My mother came home very late. She usually comes home late, but today, it was past 9:30 p.m. She had a very long, very bad day at work. She yelled into the other room for us tell her what was in this huge box in the kitchen!! Then I told her that it was for her.

We opened it up right there and she started crying. She kept repeating, "I can't believe strangers would do this. This has made my day ten thousand percent." Inside was a box of turtle chocolates, flavoured hot chocolates, and a 1000 piece puzzle. Inside a separate box within was a beautiful bamboo box carrying flowering teas! We had no idea such a thing existed, but my mother loves tea and doesn't want to open it just yet because "it's for a special time. Not now. Not when I'm stressed. It's too nice."

She wants me to tell you, special gifters, that it made her day many times over. She is so thankful and she can't fathom strangers would go out of their way to be so nice to her. She just walked back into the room as I'm writing this, shaking her head, and said, "What sweet people! I didn't know there were people like that out there. Honest. I'm so shocked. Wow!"

This is what the 100th Gift Exchange meant to me; why I signed up. Kindness, giving, thoughtfulness, and putting others before yourself - I've seen nothing but the good in people coming through these exchanges. My gifters took the time to put together special gifts for two members of my family and I can't express how thankful we are.

You're amazing, guys. I still can't believe it. In my mind, you're the 100th Exchange personified.

Original text:

I received this generous gift last week, but wanted to give it to its rightful recipient before I wrote this up. My mom is a very busy and stressed out lady from working two jobs and I expected maybe just a small package with a few little surprises for her to open. I wasn't expecting the generosity shown by my Santa when they gifted my mother with an entire spa day in the big city nearest to us! I was blown away!

The only problem is that my mother and I both knew that she wasn't the type of person to go to a spa. We're both, well, not exactly...anti-social, but very pro-personal space and socially introverted. The prospect of stripping down and having a stranger rub their hands all over would have us both running out of the door faster than you can say "parrafin" (whatever that is, exactly)!

She immediately wanted to donate it to her workplace, which I vetoed because it was the exact opposite of what I wanted to achieve from the exchange (taking her mind off work). So, we thought about who the best person to give it to would be. I think we couldn't have chosen a more deserving recipient for this amazing gift: ma tante Aline.

She is an amazingly nice and kind individual who has had a lot on her plate for awhile now and really deserves the chance to relax!

I will explain more in the picture captions!

If you want to read more about the disease mentioned, my cousin, or my mother's organisation you can read more here:

http://dbafoundation.org/ http://alexsgrandjourney.blogspot.ca/ http://visionsofindependence.org/