The outdoor one had great potential. And with my affinity for unicorns, fantasy also seemed like it could be a blast. Not to mention Running & Fitness ... 90s Nostalgia ... UGH!? How can I choose just one? And what will it be?!
Well, duh. Pirates.
You know me and "International Talk Like a Pirate Day".
In case you forgot:
2017
2018
Oh man, it's depressing to see how little my son was in the 2017 picture (see the 2018 link). Sigh!
Before I go on, I should mention ... you can sign up for more than one exchange if you really want to. But since it's a $20 suggested gift minimum, plus shipping ... well, I do this for fun, and not to just blow my money all the time. Enough said.
Back to pirates.
Since I do Reddit Gifts more for the fun of sending someone else a gift, I filled out my profile requesting that I get a pirate surprise that is three year old friendly. And then I waited.
On matching day, I got this:
Hmm ... interesting. Let my freak flag fly? That's a bold statement on Reddit, especially considering I've been matched to interesting partners in the past.
Well, let's put that request on hold for a second and start gift researching.
With not much to go on for my partner's likes and dislikes, I started poking around on their social media profiles and their Amazon wish lists. I was pleased to find that they seem to be crafty like me, and possibly hand make soap (an assumption I made based on their Amazon "crafting" wish list). They even had a skeleton / pirate looking silicone mold they had bookmarked over a year ago. Score!
Using the mold as my starting point, I kept looking. That's when I saw they also had flagged a "Goonies" triple feature DVD in their favorites. Since being a movie collector was one of the few things my partner mentioned in their original profile (above), I felt like that was a must-do. And me being a kid of the 80s, I couldn't exactly pass on such a classic flick.
Ok, these two items together looked promising.
Not wanting to gift totally based on pre-selected favorites my partner had identified, and lacking something full fledged pirate in the gift assortment I had going, I started poking around on Amazon for something that screamed "ARRRRGGG".
In other Reddit Gift thank you notes my partner had posted, I recalled reading some commentary about them having an early teen aged son. I also noticed they had a lot of games in their wish list, which indicated to me that my partner must like to do interactive things with their family. Taking a risk, I ordered a ultra mini, Lego-like pirate ship puzzle of sorts ... I figured, they can work on building it together, right?!
With my Amazon shopping done, my initial gift assortment pulled together to look like this:
Since I have Amazon prime, the above all shipped for free. And being that I wasn't buying these items locally (and thus could not wrap them up to make the receiving experience more fun), I decided to draw out the excitement in another way instead. So ... I purchased each item on Amazon a day apart. Making purchases every 24 hours, I forced Amazon to ship each item individually, and ensured my partner would get a gift a day for three days straight.
I figured by bombarding my partner with gifts, even if each gift individually was not so exciting, at least they had several days of presents coming in the mail. Fun, right?
But something was still missing.
Obviously, the above assortment was sorely missing a freak flag. So while my Amazon order was in the works, in my spare time I had been working on these:
After a little "hidden" back and forth with my partner (you can message your receiving partner via an anonymous message so they don't know who you are), I was thrilled:
Check! The biggest cross stitch goes to you, my friend.
Since I could wrap this one up, I did ...
And off it went.
The package arrived, but then ... radio silence. Not going to lie, I did get a bit worried. Reminding myself that we had just entered a holiday weekend (Memorial), I put on my patience pants and waited.
And then, finally!
Hooray, they liked it!
