...but I'm gonna try my best! :)

The day started off normally, albeit a little hectic. Hubby's work is busy, I'm busy trying to bake/plan/bake birthday things, and we attempted the madhouse that is Costco at this time of year. Bleh. My neighbor bangs on the door and was like "Hey, this HUGE box came in for you and I don't want it to get wet in the rain" then leaves. Mind you, he's like huffing a bit cuz he had to carry this HUGE box up our stairs. (I made a note to bake him extra cookies this year for dealing with our packages.) My husband was like...um, what did you order?? Then we both realize that this is my Secret Santa gift. Like whaaaaaaa?? I took a pic of the box, which is about 10 times the size I expected my gift to be. We opened it up and I so so so wish I took a video (really, I had no idea it was going to be so epic) and OMG...IT WAS THE LEGO DISNEY CASTLE!!! THE LEGO DISNEY CASTLE!!! AHHHHHH!!! I swear, between the yelling and omgs, I almost burst into tears. I contained the liquid in my eyes for the sake of our child who is too young to understand that there can be tears of happiness, not just sadness. (Ok, a few drops escaped, but no one saw, phew.)

How did my Santa know that I LOVE LEGOS??? I didn't mention Legos at all, just my love of Disney. Did he know that we just graduated our daughter from Duplos to Legos? Did he know that we've been playing with my brother's old pirate set that's about 30 years old now but it's still SO FUN? Did he know that I saw this epic castle back in August in the Lego VIP newsletter but only thought I could ever own it in my DREAMS?? How did he know??

Dear Mr. Claus, thank you. Thank you for being so kind and generous with your gift. Thank you for making absolute strangers completely giddy like children Christmas morning. Thank you for sending something so thoughtful that it makes me tear up just thinking about it. Thank you for finding something so EPIC that made this lurker so less fearful of posting and expressing to everyone how thankful she is. Thank you so much and please give our best to Mrs. Claus!

P.S. I was going to build it before posting this, but saw the textbook sized manual (hello, 4000+ piece set) and that the avg. build time was 15 hours...which in reality means over a week for us and I didn't want to keep you waiting with my post! I'll update this when done! :)

P.P.S. A haiku for you: Thanks Secret Santa Your thoughtfulness has no bounds Happy Holidays!

TL;DR Super amazing SS gifted epic Lego castle and I'm tearfully thankful