Twitter Secret Santa 2014 part 2 – Unwrapping awesomeness

by Diane on 20/12/2014

People started receiving their Twitter Secret Santa presents on Friday, 19 December.

Following the #nzsecretsanta hashtag on Twitter was absolutely amazing. Watching the community unwrap gifts as they were delivered, seeing photos of all the presents that have been bought or crafted to put a smile on the face of a stranger… reading all about it was the best way to spend the evening.

Our presents didn’t arrive on Friday, we had to wait another day. Max and I kept an eye on the mailbox, and we both ran to the door when the postie arrived.

Max sitting on the window sill, looking down the driveway.

Max waiting for his Secret Santa.

DHL van at the bottom of our driveway.

There’s the postie!

The conversation I had with the postie was quite funny. He barely knows about Twitter and he had never heard of Twitter Secret Santa. Yet he had presents addressed to our chicken and our cat in his hands. I’m pretty sure our encounter was the weirdest thing that happened to him that day.

In total we’ve received 4 presents on Saturday. My gift was stuck in Auckland, so I only got it on Monday.

The chicken

Last year Ingrid got a super perfect present. We were quite vocal about it, and I feel sorry if this has put a little pressure on her Santa, but they’ve absolutely nailed it too! Rather than trying to top last year’s gift, they simply gave her…: CHICKENS!

Chicken Ingrid on a tree root with the card that explains her present.

Ingrid checking out her present.

If you’ve been following Ingrid on Twitter you’ll know that we recently got two new chicks, and that she wasn’t too impressed with them. They’re still getting used to each other and she can be a real bully, so her Secret Santa made the perfect decision to get her two chickens that will live far, far away.

To be precise: these chickens will be living in Papua New Guinea, where they will support a family by producing yummy eggs they can eat and sell. A great source of income to pay for education, healthcare and other essentials. Additionally this family will get advice on how to raise these chickens and how to breed them to sustain future income.

This is such an awesome present – I’m very glad that Ingrid once again scored well at Secret Santa.

The cat

Max was very lucky this year too. Last year he missed out and got the sponsor’s chocolate, which Kai and I ate, so he ended up truly empty pawed. But not this year!

Photo of Max and his presents: cat food, a collar, a toy mouse.

Max checking out his presents.

He got a super awesome toy mouse (he looooooves feathers to play with, and this one has a bunch of feathers for its tail), a sparkly collar and heaps of fancy food.

The best one for him will be the Chicken & Duck pouch – we never buy him chicken because he lives with chickens. That’s like buying dog meat for dinner if your human flatmate owns a labrador, so he keeps missing out on chicken flavour. But this is his present, he had it as an indulgence dinner.

The husband

Remember Kai’s Pak’n’Save voucher from last year? That was a bit of a disappointment, luckily he scored much, much better this year!

Kai's presents: lollies airplanes and 3D airplane puzzles.

Kai’s presents.

What to get an aviation geek…? Yep, airplanes! 3D airplane puzzles and winegums. Awesome present! And after the weekend Kai even got a second present: yummy chocolate – double lucky!

The virtual resident

As in previous years my expat Kiwi friend Jennifer in Australia used our address to take part in Twitter Secret Santa. We unwrapped her present in a FaceTime session – she also got something that’s absolutely perfect for her: a kitten bookmark calendar and lego.

Jennifers presents: a kitten bookmark calendar and a lego mini figure.

Jennifer’s presents.

Me

I had to wait a little bit longer for my present, it only arrived on Monday. But it was definitely worth the wait – my gift is perfect!

My secret santa present: sun screen, lip balm and a nice note.

My perfect Secret Santa present.

It’s super awesome sunscreen! It’s a brand I hadn’t heard of before, it’s called SolScents. So not only does it have SPF 30, it also smells fantastic. Luckily I was home reasonably early today, so I put it on right away and spent some time out in the sun with the chickens. It feels really nice on the skin, and even quite a few hours later my arms still smell amazing. But that’s not all, in addition to SPF, scent und even water resistance it’s also made without being tested on animals (it features the little rabbit logo on the back) – which means it gets the ‘Diane tick of approval’ in every possible way!

And as if this wasn’t awesome enough by itself, my incredible Secret Santa also added super high quality sunscreen lip balm. I’ll be totally protected while gardening this summer – bring on the sun!

Thank you my lovely Secret Santa!

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

Verena December 21, 2014 at 1:41 am

Hallo Diane,

I hope you will have as much luck as Kai and your pets. I will hold my thumps pressed until you have posted the foto of your present.

Best wishes and wunderful holidays,
Verena

Rob Holmes December 23, 2014 at 10:09 pm

So glad you got a nice gift this year! All the elves had their fingers crossed for you :-)

Leave a Comment

{ 1 trackback }

Previous post:

Next post: