I missed the first zombie exchange - it was a few months before I found out about /r/secretsanta - and I was so beyond gutted to realise it. Zombies are my thing, and I'm not ashamed to admit it!

Luckily though, I was able to take part in the Apocalypse exchange last year and you can be sure I tailored my likes/dislikes section pretty heavily towards the inevitable zombie apocalypse! My Apocalypse santa was amazing and delivered beyond belief. After that experience, I really wouldn't have minded if there hadn't been another zombie exchange because my apocalypse santa just killed it.

But then last month, I saw that there was another zombie exchange announced and knew I had to do it. Because, you know, zombies are totally my thing!

Anyway, I was psyched for it. Possibly not as psyched as I would've been if I hadn't done the amazing apocalypse exchange, because how could that be beaten? But still super psyched.

Spoiler alert: If I'd known who my zombie santa was going to be I think I would've died of excitement.

Anyway, signups and waiting for matching was full of excitement as ever. And my santa was on it. They picked up my info immediately and was checking it pretty regularly - pretty much every time I went to look at my giftee's info I saw my santa had been looking at mine! Which, obviously, isn't necessary to make an exchange experience awesome but helps keep that excitement building!

My santa was pretty nice at communication too - again, not a requirement, but super exciting! My likes and dislikes are always a little scattered and rambling; I really suck at writing about myself and am easily distracted (as if you couldn't tell from this post....) and always end my likes/dislikes with a note encouraging my santa to contact me if they have any questions or want more information. My santa messaged me really early on to let me know what was happening and that they’d be shipping soon - but no questions for me, they seemed to have a pretty good idea of what to do. Which is exciting and only mildly worrying because, again, super scatterbrained writing about myself so god knows what impression people get from my likes/dislikes!

And then, suddenly, it was shipped! And I was eagerly (and impatiently) awaiting the arrival of three packages from amazon, whoop! When I saw there were three packages coming (omg exciting!!) I decided I’d wait until they were all here to open them, because that’s the responsible thing to do right? And will make it easier to take photos and do the write up. Totally makes sense. It’s just practical.

And then my amazon delivery guy arrived, with a package for my Merry, c/o MerpyP. Which confused him a lot. Because I get a lot of deliveries from amazon, but under my full name (Meredith) and he addresses me as Meredith every time he stops by and we always have a nice chat. So he wanted to make sure it was for me. Which was nice, but totally distracted me from my prior vow to wait for all the parcels…. Ooops. But I was totally never going to manage that anyway.

Inside was something that I’ve wanted for ages but wasn’t expecting to get, because it was hidden waaaaaay down on my amazon wish list - the last The Walking Dead plushie left for my collection! I’d somehow managed to collect all of the others without purchasing any of them, yay for Reddit Exchanges! I was super impressed that a) my santa was psychic enough to know this one was the one I needed to complete my collection and b) it velcro’d to separate. Awesome.

So super impressed that I actually binned the box without looking at the gift note (oops!) Luckily my brother was around and spotted the gift note, and then everything started to make sense….

My amazing psychic zombie santa? Also my amazing psychic apocalypse santa! Complete with amazing notes continuing on from the apocalypse gifts!

I can’t remember which of the next two gifts arrived first, I was floating in a bubble of excitement about my luck of getting the wonderful Nifty1 as a santa again, but I did manage to open them together this time! And both will be very useful come zombie apocalypse time.

The zombie jerky (also from my wish list, thank you!!) looks disgusting (seriously. eew.) but tastes surprisingly good! A great novelty gift that actually has a practical use haha.

Speaking of practical uses…. The last gift was something I wasn’t expecting in the slightest and (to use a cliche) left me a little bit speechless. It’s the most amazing multi-tool axe, which makes me the envy of every single person who has seen it! If I can only have one thing when the zombie shit hits the fan, it’s going to be this baby. It’s not something I would ever have thought of buying for myself - or probably for anyone else - but holy shit it’s amazing (and so satisfyingly heavy!) and perfect for the apocalypse!

And this is really long and probably not worth it, but I just wanted to do justice to Nifty1’s amazing gifts, THANK YOU! I cannot believe you were my santa again, and for such a similar themed exchange, but I’m beyond happy that you were! And I hope that one day I get you as my gifted so I can repay your amazing generosity!