Broken Forum Secret Santa 2012 -- opening thread!

As I posted in the main Secret Santa thread, if gift opening week is the week of Monday the 17th, well, I count weeks Sunday-Saturday, so 12:01am Sunday the 16th is the time to start if you ask me. And, as Matt was agreeable, here goes!

Er, yeah, all that said, I'm still 2.5 hours early. But, there's definitely a bottle of some sort in this box, and I'm in the perfect mood for what I'm 95% certain it is, given this post:



...and, I'm correct -- Hanzii sent me a bottle of one of my (obviously) absolute favorite single malts, but an expression I've never tried -- Talisker Distiller's Edition 1999!



As this is good stuff, you can see I've busted out the Glencairn glass to give it the proper respect.

And, the back of the box, for those of you who go for higher-end liquor marketspeak:



In short: it's similar to Talisker 10 year, but spends part of its 10 years aging in Amoroso sherry casks (instead of just bourbon casks) -- end result is most of the signature Talisker pepperiness is replaced with a sherry sweetness, similar to the Balvenie Doublewood that's popular with the scotch crowd around here. Except this is even more delicious.

Seriously, this stuff is REALLY good. While I try to make the really good stuff last, it's gonna be a real challenge with this one :)

Again, I've never had the distiller's edition before, so this was a perfect pick -- thanks, Hanzii!

CHRISTMAS IS AWESOME

Edit: ...and it's even better with a tiny splash of water, damn!

Top Drawer!

Now, who gets to follow that. :)

oh. my. god. I don't think Quackers sent me a box, she sent me a portal into the candy dimension.

Pictures forthcoming.

So, this is the haul. The cards show Boston scenes, and explain the reasoning behind each box or bag of candy. All in all, an awesome trove, and I'm currently plotting how I'll convince my wife to make tacos for dinner. Also, holy shit can this woman pack boxes.


Thanks Quackers!

"Merry Christmas, I got you diabetes!"

Holy crap!

(...what's the Boston connection to the Old El Paso taco dinner?)

think that's more of a general american thing. Here we have a crappy little texmex chain, but I normally don't go there. Never actually tried tacos, so I'm OK with this.

And these are mine :) finally got my hands on the amazon package that arrived some time ago \O/



Eheh :D love books. The "Nanny Oggs Cookbook" was on my list of "to buy" :D so, got lucky that my Secret Santa got to it first. And the "Cat getting out of a bag" book, well it's about cats, so, for sure I'll like it too :)



Thank you Hawkeye Fierce !

Hey, how come everyone is opening their stuff? I know Talisker claimed a situational allowance, but the rest of you have one more day to go!

it's sunday evening. Tomorrow I'll get up early to go to work. There's basically zero chance I'll work all day with unopened packages at home :D

I was actually going to hold off on opening my package for another four hours (midnight is technically the 17th) but when I got a Steam pop-up from Ben Sones gifting me Deadlight I figured the cat was out of the bag. So here we go. Apologies for my shitty phone camera.




Box open, and a mysterious message.





The front of the box is neatly labelled too.



Now to open up this sucker.




Ben has sent me five lbs of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Truly the candy I would miss the most in case of zombie apocalypse. And I want to give special props to Ben for the packaging. Very neat and now I'll be embarassed when my Santee opens my gifts. Thanks Ben!



Omnomnomnom.

Because it's the week of the 17th :)

We have that exact same brand of Taco dinner kits here in Sweden, found in every grocery store. I admit I was a tad surprised too.

Called it!

As far as kit's go, El Paso's the best (IMO). Their Gordita kits are the shit.

wow, awesome gifts!!

Well, since I've been tagged I think it's only fair if I go ahead and open mine, now.

It came in an Amazon box sized to contain good things for videogamers. My wife confirmed that it was wrapped, so here it is pre-opening:



And the note:



Which is a pretty big hint, and indeed I open it up to find:



Which is great, thanks Secret Santa! The only question now is who the heck are you? Reveal yourself!

Well, apparently your Santa's a lady (or at least identifies as such), so that should narrow it down slightly.

Everyone's a lady on the internet.

Ladies of Broken Forum who are known to have played that and participated in Secret Santa include Rapunzel.

I had planned on doing something game-related, since I have a decent grasp on Kalle's tastes in games. In fact, I was originally thinking of getting him Blood Bowl: Team Manager, since I know he likes Games Workshop stuff, and has participated in the Blood Bowl league. But then I started thinking "What are the odds that a GW fan will already own this really good GW game that came out over a year ago?" And so I figured maybe something through Steam instead, since then I could at least look at his library and make sure that he didn't already own it. And then he mentioned how much he likes Reeses cups, and I thought "STALKING: SUCCESSFUL!"

True, but that wasn't from me. So... I guess this helps you narrow it down by one? :)

Yes, I enjoy a good game of Clue. How did you guess?

Rapunzel in the Pink Room with the chef's knife!

Got one part of my gift through Steam today... from Jason Pace! Unfortunately I already own what he sent me (Apparently Steam doesn't update a wishlist if you purchase a game (Which is stupid/annoying)), so I'll probably be re-gifting that portion!

The rest is in the mail, as they say.

Soooo happy you didn't already have it. Given your name, that wasn't necessarily likely. As I wrote to Talisker in the PM, I really wanted to get him a local whisky, there's one made at my local brewery, but their stuff is in such limited batches that a very young whisky is priced at about three times the one I got him. And that's not adding shipping and my fear that due to Michigan's laws it would end up being poured in a drain somewhere.

And even though I haven't tasted them myself, I doubt they're worth that much. They're collectors items and for showing off, but they are probably too young to win in a blind tasting.
So I'm glad I managed to hit one he didn't have. I was busy at work and feared that getting Talisker for Talisker was being the laziest stalker ever.

My turn:
Well, after a long day of cleaning house (finished a 10 pm) I decided I deserved a beer and a present (tomorrow is starts with a trip to the US Embassy and then work, so who knows when I'll be home).



I'ts from Amazon and has a nice heft and shape... the card says "May you have a joyous and game-filled 2013! Mrs Widget" I'll hazard a guess. It's a boardgame.



This is me making this noise...




Civilization. A game I've wanted for a long time (as if I don't spend enough time playing Civilization...), but never bought for myself, because I wasn't sure I'd ever get anybody to play it with me - now I definitely will!
I love my new game. It's heavy and has lots of little markers. Perfect!

Thanks a lot MrsWidget.

Looks like that t-shirt's working, too.

Glad you like it! :) It's sort of simple compared to the awesome ones up thread, but for my first time I decided it was ok to go with a wishlist gift :)

Yay, glad it all got there in one piece, Astromarine! I was nervous that somehow that bag o' beans was going to cause customs to hunt me down and yell at me. Thank Aurora for letting me know you liked peanut butter candy. Once I was in the candy aisle I saw all the different Reeses stuff and rather than just choosing one, I got one of every single kind they had, which thanks to Christmas was a lot!

I also hit up a god damn ton of websites as to what Americans visiting your country for long periods of time missed so that I could try to send an assortment of things you would not have easy access to. I hope you like the tacos, I find them super delicious. And easy to make, which is always key.

Out of solidarity with my long-suffering Santee, I am going to refrain from opening any box I receive until theirs arrives.

Out of solidarity with the time-space continuum, I am refraining from opening my box until it arrives.

For the peanut butter starved Europeans, I need to point out that the oil in peanut butter tends to oxidize rather quickly (Within a few months- oxidized peanut butter is not bad for you, but it doesn't taste as good as it does when fresh), So keep your peanut butter related stash in a cool dry place. Or, do as I do, and consume it quickly.

I pointed this out to Ben when I replied "you sent how many peanut butter cups to Sweden?"

A HUNDRED! Well, 96 individual cups (48 packs), if you want to get specific.

I can assure you all that there is absolutely no chance that these will spoil.


...omnomnom

I have been banned from opening the two boxes sat a couple of tantalising feet away :(

Nah you should go hunt down the delivery truck it is on and open it there.

I've intercepted the delivery truck before, once.

I will be opening my gifts tomorrow.

Is it because I feel that the presents should really only be opened on the 17th, except in the case of house-destruction? No, I'm perfectly fine with that.

It's because it's No-Shave Sunday and my hair looks ridiculous, and I need all the help I can get.

After a small period of badgering, I finally secure permission to delve.


Behold! Boxes!

Let's try the tall one... oooh, before we delve too deeply.


And inside....


Identity revealed! I'm guessing on Spock Ears based on the message surely? (oops on the sideways pic)

It's not that I forgot to take a photo at this point or anything, I just decided that it'd be a good idea to turn my attention to the other box instead. Ahem.



Inside we find..


A Fish Filleting Knife! with means to travel into the wilderness or reduce the changes of me slicing my fingers off in the kitchen.

So, the contents of the tall box? I see your bottle of Talisker and raise you a:



Distillers edition, 1994 Lagavulin!

Quality stalking Aurora, I'm looking forward to trying out the knife. Sadly I think the chances of the Lagavulin obeying your message to live long is probably quite slim, but it will be for a good cause.

Thank you very much.

[edit]
My Lagavulin met with a small accident, somehow the cork worked its way loose. Fortunately the bottle just happened to be right over a Glencairn glass at the time. What are the odds of that, I wonder?

Oh my word, it's like being enveloped in warm peaty banket of loveliness.