I'll start by saying that this year's holiday season has been one of the most difficult one for me. It started with one of my cat having a life threatening medical emergency (that's still ongoing as I'm typing this), followed by a series of terrible family emergencies including my father's declining health. However, I'd say that my holiday was single-handedly saved by my amazing Santa /u/ThankfulImposter.

Where do I even begin? At first an Amazon shipment arrived with a bag of Kashmiri mixture and a thing of cricket cookie mix with a very lovely note. I honestly thought this was it and was already excited for them. I immediately tried the Kashmiri mixture which honestly looks a lot more intimidating than it tasted. It's very spicy (not in the hot way, but in the spice way). It's definitely an acquired taste and I've been slowly acquiring it more over time. I foresee myself snacking on it more at work!

A few days afterwards, I received a mysterious package in the mail and was completely shocked by it! It came with a very thoughtful note and many beautifully wrapped gifts. At this time however life has taken a hold of my time so I didn't even have the time to open the gifts until Christmas morning. Boy was I surprised by just the sheer amount of thought that's in the gifts!

First I opened the books. Family Style Chinese cookbook, which by the way, is SURPRISINGLY authentic. Being a huge foodie and avid cook at home, I immediately recognized the authenticity of everything (my mom later attested as well). I then opened The Tatooist of Auschwitz. Never heard of the book before but it's very obviously something I'd love and I can't wait to dig into it in the new year.

I then opened the baby toy (because our cat stepped on it and it made a noise). My wife and I immediately burst out laughing! The controller toy is just absolutely perfect (I'm a video game developer). It's by far the most thoughtful baby gift we've ever received, and I'm sure our baby gamer would appreciate the early hand training it provides :D

After the toy, I got to the bowtie and pocket square combo, which are just perfect. I love colorful clothes and bowties (real ones that you actually tie). Being "the bowtie guy" among my friends and family, it's very common to receive the clip-on ties that I know I'll never wear. It just warms my heart to see that the effort was put in that it's actually a real bowtie, 100% silk at that (material is very important!). I ended up wearing the bowtie for a fancy fine dinning experience with my friends on New Years Eve and it looked great. I am looking forward to wearing the pocket square too for conferences and meeting down the road.

After that, I opened the mugs. My wife immediately started tearing up because she was just struck by how thoughtful the gifts have been for our family (this is especially important because her Reddit secret Santa completely fell through and she never received anything even with a 3 credit signup). The mugs instantly became a household item for us. It is now my ONLY mug at home, I use it to drink everything!

What really surprised me was the last package, which was a bag of authentic mini tuo tea, all ripe puer, some of my favorites. The tea is imported from Yunnan, the puer tea capital. I honestly still am astonished by how my Santa could POSSIBLY know tea enough to know that this was a perfect gift for a gong fu tea lover. The bag comes with a variety of different ripe puer teas, and I've already had 2 full sessions with them. I'm very much looking forward to spending more weekend mornings with the family drinking some amazing ripe puer.

Last but not least, the reason why it took me so long to write this up is because I really wanted to bake out the cookies and report in on the results. I've never baked before, in my life (I know, it's weird since I cook so much, I guess I just never got into baking). This ended up being a messy 3 hour experience where my wife had to step in and help out! After mixing the mix with an egg and some butter, chilling the dough for 2 hours in the fridge, and then clumsily putting them into a pan... they turned out great! I never expected crickets to taste so good :P The cookies taste very similar to normal cookies, except there's a strong and complex bitterness, almost like burnt straws? Or maybe burnt hair? Wife wasn't a fan, but I didn't mind though. If anything, the bitterness kind of made it taste like dark chocolate. What's funny is that the cookies are surprisingly filling (probably because of all the healthy proteins). I'm for sure going to bring them to work and share with everyone and tell them all about it!

I just want to thank you ThankfulImposter. This holiday season was out to get me and you single-handedly saved it for our family. Each and every one of these gifts were so extremely thoughtful, heart warming, caring, meaningful, and I am eternally grateful for everything. It honestly still boggles my mind how you managed to put in the effort to make this happen. If there's some way for me to nominate you to be person of the year or something I totally would. This has seriously been the most magical and amazing experience that came out of the 8+ years of me on Reddit. Thank you again for everything. I sincerely hope you had an amazing holiday season, new year, and many many more to come.