- December 19, 2013 10:04am EST
Secret Santa exchanges usually leave participants with a pumpkin spice-scented candle, a cookie in a jar, or, if you're lucky, a pair of touch-screen gloves, wrapped haphazardly by a co-worker or friend.So Reddit user NY1227 likely didn't expect much when she joined the site's Secret Santa program. But a 7-pound package from "Bill" turned into a Christmas miracle.
In a well-documented account of the exchange, NY1227 revealed that her confidential gifter was none other than Microsoft co-founder and world's richest person, Bill Gates.
"Can I call you Bill?!" she wrote in a Reddit post. "I feel like we're friends now!"
Now in its fourth year, redditgifts invites people around the world to sign up for the program, which matches users to create the largest online Secret Santa gift exchange. This year, Reddit broke its own records by gathering 121,900 Santas from 160 countries — up from 44,000 people in 2012.Participants provide a wish list as a starting point for gifters, and despite picks like "makeup, nail polish, [and] glittery things," not to mention an Apple iPad, NY1227 opened her overnighted package to something that was decidedly not glittery.
According to her account, the box contained a stuffed cow, confirmation of an undisclosed donation to Heifer International (a $500 contribution provides a family with a cow for income and dairy products), and National Geographic's Journeys of a Lifetime: 500 of the World's Greatest Trips book.
It wasn't until she opened the final piece of the package that the puzzling gift made sense: A picture of a bespectacled Bill Gates holding the stuffed cow and a signed note to Rachel (user NY1227, right) — proof that someone wasn't just screwing with her.
"Then it finally hit me," she wrote. "All the presents I just tore open, the charity, [the] everything — was from BILL GATES."Though it's unlikely she'll be able to send a personalized thank you note to Gates, Rachel said she hopes her Reddit post — which repeatedly offers notes of gratitude and excitement — suffices.
And, to her credit, she apologized to the Microsoft creator for one particular request: "Sorry for the Apple iPad on my wishlist," she wrote in a postscript. "That was really awkward."
For more, see 7 Books Bill Gates Thinks You Should Read.
