For the first part of my gift, my Santa looked at my love of hiking and the outdoors and got me a large scroll map of the Appalachian Trail, along with some pushpins to mark my progress on it. It was pretty awesome, since I've actually been considering grabbing one for myself before this! I hung it up on a door and used the push-pins to mark where I had been.

I attempted a thru-hike in 2012 and put in a respectable chunk of miles before returning home for a much job opportunity. To mark the map, I decided to take out my old trail journal and put a pin at the locations I had stayed each night on my hike. It was fun reliving the trip in a condensed time, and then visualizing the scale of how much more of the trail remained unpinned was impressive. Not daunting, more so... inviting ;) Guess I need to go finish it and get some more pins, eh?

If the second part of the gift is anywhere near as thoughtful as this, then my Santa definitely outdid himself. Very glad I participated again.