Update 10/12/2014: Attached a few pictures taken from our seats at the game! The seats were great and we had a blast! Too bad that the Vikings played awful, though... -----------------------------------------------

Now, I have seen the words "Best Gifter Ever!" thrown around a lot, but I am pretty confident that my rematcher is the true owner of that title! The words "above and beyond" don't even do this guy justice...

To start the story from the beginning:

My Secret Santa originally didn't send me a gift or contact me - as a result, I signed up for rematching and I promptly received an anonymous message from my rematcher. We spent some time sending messages back and forth about our shared interests - especially our favorite NFL teams from our respective cities. I am a big Minnesota Vikings fan and my rematcher happens to be a big Detroit Lions fan. We bonded over the pain of being fans of the two "least successful" teams in our NFL divison.

During these messages, he sent me an imgur link to what he described as "Part 1" of what he is sending me. As I told him in my reply, after clicking the link to his image all I could do was stare at my computer screen - jaw dropped with my hand over my mouth as I tried to compose myself.

TWO TICKETS TO THIS YEARS VIKINGS VS. LIONS GAME???!?

ON THE GOAL LINE??!

THIRD ROW?!!!!!!!!!!!?!??!?

THIS IS ONLY "PART 1"??!??!! IS THIS REAL LIFE???

My girlfriend and I were originally planning on going to this very game... but the tickets that I was looking into buying were worse than these in every way! It has been several days since he sent this to me and I am still pretty much at a loss for words on how to react to this gift.

As if my rematcher hadn't already won the title of "Best Gifter Ever!", "Part 2" arrived this afternoon via UPS. Inside the package were five incredibly thoughtful items that my rematcher selected to touch on basically every single interest that I mentioned in my Redditgifts profile. Any one of these items would have made for an excellent secret santa exchange gift in itself, but he saw fit to send ALL FIVE on top of his already ridiculous gift of the Vikings tickets!!

Starting off Part 2, to accomodate my homebrewing hobby, I was given not one, but TWO Homebrewing books!

Items 1 & 2:

The Joy of Home Brewing by Charlie Papazian

The Homebrewer's Recipe Guide by Patrick Higgins, Maura Kate Kilgore, and Paul Hertlein

These will help me improve my skills in my favorite hobby and hopefully help me take my recipes to the next level!

Up next, Item 3:

Sipping Stones!

As you may have guessed by now... I like to drink. Don't judge... These stones can be kept in the freezer and used to act like ice cubes that don't melt and water down your alcohol!

And now, Item 4:

A fresh set of strings for my bass guitar!

My instrument is well overdue to be restrung - I will be winding these up as soon as possible!!

And last but not least: Item 5:

Cat treats for my two cats, Meatloaf and Shady!

At least a note in the box from my rematcher said they are for the cats and "probably not for me"... I think I will heed the suggestion. Unfortunately, Shady is diabetic and needs to stay on a pretty strict diet, so more treats for Meatloaf! I think he approves of this arrangement. I did give one to her, though, because she made pathetic noises until I gave in....

My rematcher did accidentally reveal his reddit name to me due to a mixup in the email address he used to send the tickets to me with. He asked that I keep his identity a secret, however - so I will just say one last time: THANK YOU, Anonymous Rematcher! Your thoughtfulness and generosity is overwhelming! You have inspired me to be a rematcher myself and try to do my best to pay this forward. "You the real MVP!"