I've been doing Secret Santa and various other Redditgifts exchanges now for two years, and I've had both good and bad experiences with gifters. I was excited that this year's Secret Santa had the big 15 credit tier - why not give it a try, right? I'm all about putting together a great parcel for my giftee and making them smile, so I hoped that in signing up for this tier, I'd get someone who felt the same way.

You know what? I did. And it feels awesome.

My Santa was amazing to me!! I got a big box in the mail on Tuesday evening, and it was full of wrapped presents. I think this is the first time in my Redditgifts experience that I've had someone wrap the presents they sent me! How exciting! I opened everything up excitedly right away, and found some fantastic stuff that showed me that my match really cared about my interests and putting together a wonderful present for me. Santa (I'm so sorry, I don't know your username!), you hit the nail on the head!

She got me:

1) a bag of treats and a laser pointer toy for my pet cat Cleo, who was all over the box as soon as I opened it. She knew what present was hers, all right! She loves her gift. :D

2) a clever way to arrange date nights with my SO! We don't have a ton of money and have been looking for new ideas, and my Santa came up with a great way for us to start planning more things to do together. I showed them to my SO, and he's already started to think of things that we can write on the popsicle sticks!

3) a bar of festive milk chocolate! Chocolate is the way to my heart. I adore you, Santa.

4) tiny holiday cookie cutters!! I love to bake, and baking Christmas cookies with my mom is one of my favourite holiday memories. I'm going to try and find time to put these cute little guys to use before Christmas comes around.

5) a journal to write in! Santa, I'm going to be honest: this actually made me tear up. Something about the words on the front of the journal, and the little encouraging note you left inside the front cover... it did really nice things for my self-esteem, which I sometimes struggle with. So thank you, truly, for this. I can't wait to begin writing in it.

6) a book about serial killers! Which would be a very odd gift for some, but I was thrilled to receive it! Researching and reading about true crime is one of my big hobbies & interests, but it's a bit of a strange one, so I hesitated writing it down because I didn't want to weird my Santa out. And who knows, maybe I did. But she got me this awesome book anyway, filled with profiles, that I've already started flipping through. There are a ton in here that I know nothing about, so I'm looking forward to diving in and learning.

7) beautiful little earrings! They're so delicate and pretty. I love love love earrings. :D We had our office Christmas party last night, and I wore them! They went great with my dress!

8) a snowman tea light holder!! My Santa told me in advance that she'd made something fragile for me, so I was really excited to open this up and see what it was! I don't think I've ever had a Santa send me something handmade. :D It felt so special to know that she'd thought of me and spent her time painting me this cool tea light holder. I'll definitely be burning candles this Christmas.

To top it all off, she wrote me a really lovely letter to go with it all. Santa, from the bottom of my heart, thank you SO MUCH. The amount of thought and care that you put into my present just blew me away and made me really emotional. It's people like you that make Redditgifts so amazing, and make me come back for more throughout the year. You're truly special, and I feel so fortunate. Thank you, again, for everything. I hope your Santa was good to you, and that you have a wonderful holiday!!!

(Also, my boyfriend thanks you very much for the bubble wrap. He is a small child at heart and spent so much time popping it all after I opened my present. You delighted him, too!)