This is my third year doing Reddit Secret Santa, and my first as an elf. I've always had an awesome time doing SS, but generally enjoy the giving more than the receiving.

My Santa this year changed that completely.

First, she reached out to me early on and asked me a bunch of questions, and we chatted about things we had in common (like studying economics). "Okay, nice," I thought. "My Santa seems like a cool person, is active/communicative, and probably isn't going to forget to ship something!"

We exchanged a number more messages where I learned that she has similarly excellent taste in television, is familiar with the city I'm living in, knits, etc.

Then, after what was categorically one of the worst two-week-periods I've had all year (pulling multiple all-nighters in an incredibly stressful work situation, sleeping <4 hours per night, forgetting to eat, etc.), I arrive home to find a package waiting for me with my reddit username on it! So despite being unshowered, exhausted, and semi-delirious, I rip it open to find a beautiful silver jewelry tree. My Santa had somehow deduced from some very effective online stalking that I needed a jewelry tree to store all of my earrings, having moved from NYC to the West Coast recently and having left my old one behind.

But turns out the jewelry tree was just a "teaser" gift and the rest was yet to come...

Fast forward a few days, and I come home late at night again to find ANOTHER mysterious package. This one contains not one, not two, not three --- but SIX beautifully-wrapped gifts.

Ho. Lee. Shit.

Now, growing up in an immigrant family, we'd never really done the whole big-Christmas-gift-giving-bonanza thing, so this was new to me. The suspense of not knowing what's inside each meticulously-wrapped package is wonderful and exciting, but I forced myself to not open anything until after I'd taken photos of how beautiful everything looked.

The gifts were amazing: a kickass, nerdy D20 mug; 4 different kinds of gourmet looseleaf tea; chocolate-covered espresso bits; a book I've never heard of but that looks exactly up my alley; and a beautiful, comfortable, hand-knitted infinity scarf. Each gift was designed to address a specific interest or need of mine. But hands-down, my favorite part of the entire gift was the letter that came with it.

My Santa wrote me a ridiculously sweet, thoughtful letter explaining the rationale behind each and every part of her gift to me. Not only that, but she wrote that from what she saw while stalking my Reddit posts and online presence, she thinks I'm awesomely nerdy, generous, and kind-hearted. As someone who frequently agonizes over whether or not she's actually a good person and somehow feels more comfortable cloaked in the anonymity of the internet to be more of a warm-fuzzy-marshmallow type than her real-life spiky misanthropic self, it's incredibly validating and relieving to have an internet stranger tell you that you're a good person. Not going to lie, I teared up a little reading that letter.

In sum, Owlbeebear -- thank you for what is by far the best Secret Santa gift I've ever gotten, in so many ways. I'm so glad you were my Santa and I hope we can stay in touch!