Oh my god I love this thread.
Thank you so much, @fire. This makes my year, every single year.
@RichVR now you are making me want a baking steel with that Serious Eats article. I’m gonna need that back now, mmkay? ;-)
Santa was too generous, with not one but two board games! We can’t wait to dig our teeth into a Civ type game :)
And a huge thank you to @fire for setting this up yet another year!
Just let me find that now. I hope it didn’t get thrown away with the wrapping paper. Seriously, the whole steel with a stone over it looks really good.
My Secret Santa sent a few awesome games for me to play with my kids and an AWESOME Stormtrooper for my desk!!
I looked and looked, however, and still do not know who my Santa was! Thank you very much, Anonymous Santa!!!
I love Qt3 Secret Santa!
Yay! @Vesper absolutely nailed it with his Secret Santa gift!
This will make an epic companion to my LEGO Space Shuttle (itself a Qt3 Secret Santa gift from my friend Suzanne a few years back!) on my desk in my office at home! It’s literally the perfect gift, because I have resisted buying it for myself three times already. (Once when it was released, once when I heard it was in stock at the local LEGO Store, and once when it was back in stock online when I was buying the LEGO “Women of NASA” set for my niece.)
Thank you so much, Vesper! I’m really going to enjoy building and displaying this. MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE! ;-)
Glad you like the stuff, @Galadin! I was really worried I was going to duplicate stuff you already had, so really glad I managed not to. And I’m an enabler when it comes to flight sims, so I had to encourage your continued participation. :) I saw the basic stick on your Amazon wish list, but if you’re coming from an X52, you needed a dedicated throttle too. Merry Christmas!
My generous Secret Santa got me some fantastic gifts:
A nice bottle of 7 devil’s bourbon from Idaho, a set of Star Trek glasses to drink them with, and a beautiful set of Star Trek coasters. In addition, a nice cigar ashtray.
Close up of the whiskey and coasters. They are each slices of the Enterprise so when stacked up make the whole thing.
Thanks so much and Merry Christmas, SadleyBradley!
I’m glad you like them! I’ve never shipped that much glass before, so I was kind of terrified that the bottle wouldn’t arrive in one piece.
Merry Christmas!
Woo! Since this was purely a stalking based gift I’ve been worried you already had it. I knew you loved space and LEGO but never saw an indication that you had this on Facebook, Twitter, or here. Glad I was right! Enjoy. It’s a really fun build.
I love both of those games and hope you all get some great times out of them!
Holy cow. I’m blown away. I’ve been collecting my thoughts for the last hour.
After a day of running between parents’ houses, my wife and I got home, cuddled our dog, and opened the package that had been staring at us from under the tree for the last several days. It was a large box, sealed with duct tape. Inside was packing material and a smaller box with an envelope taped to it.
Inside the smaller box was a Macbook Pro. I’m not as much of an old-timer as some of the old-timers here, but I’ve been around long enough to know that I had been secret-Santa’d by none other than @Hiredgoons. The letter confirmed it – “QT3ers generally put extra hardware to good use. I’m hoping you like this. Merry Christmas! -Hiredgoons”
My wife and I looked at each other, then back at the box, then back at each other. We pulled it out of the shipping box and just sort of gawked at it for a while.
We’ve been needing a new computer. We’ve been sharing my desktop since we’ve been together. Money’s been tight this year because (at risk of sounding too “woe is me”) we have been paying out-of-pocket for infertility treatment and now an adoption. A new computer is an extravagance that hasn’t been in the cards for us this year (and realistically, for the foreseeable future). I say that not to fish for sympathy – I only say it because I think it’s important to make it clear that this is the perfect gift for us, and it comes at the perfect time.
There’s no way that Mr. Goons could have known all that, though. His generosity, which is well-established on Quarter to Three, was just pointed in our direction by chance this year. Maybe it’s kismet. Either way, I want to make it clear that we are floored – absolutely floored – by the gift. I’m writing this post on it. It’s going to see a heck of a lot of use for a heck of a long time.
Thank you @Hiredgoons, and Merry Christmas!
Christmas update. I’m sitting here on Christmas night with my dress shirt on the floor, in my white wifebeater, watching the best Christmas movie of all, Die Hard. Enjoying my excellent Idaho bourbon gift out of my Star Trek glass. This stuff is on par with or better than my go to nowadays, Makers Mark.
So a cheers to you again, my Secret Santa! Well done sir. Let it snow, let it snow 🎄, let it snow 🎁, let it snow!
Did you know the end of Die Hard, during the end credits, there is a German version of Ode to Joy?
👍 👍 👍 Merry Christmas, man!
Hey, excellent timing! Merry Christmas, man!
My Santa was also extremely generous and I am blown away!
But first things first:
I’d received two boxes from Bezos & his elves:
Since I’m planning a trip to New Zealand over easter, Santa caringly provided some protection for my kindle with a nice old-school traveller map printed on it!
Next was the mysterious big package:
Inside it was a large green gift bag with 2 boxes:
First one revealed a new backlit keyboard with all the bells and whistles that one could wish for! Santa must have discovered a post of mine from August where I mentioned wanting to get a new keyboard and luckily I never actually got around to buying one.
Oooh, I’ve had that keyboard for a while and I love it. Nice choice! :-)
And if that wasn’t enough, the second box contained an amazing anthology that I’d been eyeing for years! (& here’s a deep and dark secret confession: I don’t think I’ve ever actually read all of Calvin’s adventures. Over the years I seen most of the collections, but am pretty sure there are a few out there that I’ve accidently skipped. What better way to read them now in this pristine print edition and dream about lazy sundays!
So dear Santa thank you sooo much for everything!
I’m really floored by your generocity and don’t feel worthy.
Hope you have an amazing christmas and as much joy as you provided me!
Merry christmas everyone!
Absolutely!
Enjoying it right now and playing around with the lights and macros trying to get a feeling for it!
What a wonderful read. I wish I had you guys’ inspiration as far as making presents go. I am taking notes!
Thanks, it’s a great gift, I was explaining it to my daughter and she wants to use it to see Grandma’s house. Which is like 3,000kms away. Merry Christmas to you and your family! :).