Late last year I signed up with RedditGifts to participate in their Secret Santa program, and what a gift I received!

Late last year, I took part in a relatively new program called RedditGifts that I had discovered on one of my various news outlets I subscribe to.  The concept is much like a Secret Santa program that you have probably participated in at some point in your life, but with complete strangers across the world.  You fill out what you are interested in, and if you are ok with shipping internationally.  I said yes to the shipping and informed my santa that all I wanted was something unique from his or her location that I could never find here in Arkansas.   My recipient was a person in Switzerland who enjoys Sci-Fi movies — making my shopping easy.  Of course the $13 in oversees shipping was a bit steep, but it was ok as this was a pretty cool little program. Everything on my part was done, all there was to do then was wait to see what “santa” brought me, and here is really where the story begins.  The day before we left to Ohio for our Holiday Adventure, I received a notice in the mailbox saying I had a package waiting for me.  Not knowing what it was (and really forgetting about the Reddit exchange) I decided to wait until I returned from holiday to go to the Post Office and pick up my package.

Finally returning on January 3rd, I stop by the post office to pick up my package and was told that I had 2 waiting.  Boxes in hand, I get out to the car and proceed to take a gander at what was sent to me.  The first thing I noticed was the first box.  It said Israel Post all over it — something I wasn’t familiar with, but explained quite a lot in regards to my website analytics.  You see, while I was in Ohio, I checked my Analytics account and it showed someone in Israel looking at every one of my pages.  At first I was thinking it was a spammer or some bot indexing my site, but after receiving this box, I realized that the unknown visitor was my secret santa researching me — and boy was I glad he or she did!

The first box (the one with the Israel Post copy all over it) contained lots of snacks and some other knick knacks from the region, including some Dead Sea Mud Soap.  Only problem is I don’t speak a word of hebrew so translating will be a pain, but it’s ok.  The second box, and the only one from anywhere I knew, was from Amazon and contained a Israeli cookbook and strainer.

To be honest, I was only expecting a little dodad, but this really made my day, no the entire season for me.  That one kind soul from another land, having never met me, took the time to research my interests and pick out gifts, that while small, really highlighted his (or her) country.  <username> if you are reading this, thank you so much.  I haven’t had time to go back to Reddit and thank you personally yet, but I will.  I hope we can stay in touch and you never know, if you are ever in the USA, you have a friend here, and I hope if I’m ever in the middle east, I will be able to call upon you for some great info and sight seeing spots.

So overall, I truly believe this was one of my better holidays…not just because I received lots of cool stuff, but because of the thought, the time, and the energy spent in making sure that the gifts bought matched the person receiving them.  I will defiantly participate in this program again next year, and hopefully will have a similar, if not better experience than I had this year.