At the very beginning of this month, on a day when the anticipation for the approaching holidays and finishing everything on my To Do list was starting to take on undertones of stress rather than enjoyment, a package arrived on my doorstep. I was baffled. What could this be? I opened the box to find nicely wrapped gifts and a card–and that’s when it hit me, my Secret Santa from the Book Blogger Holiday Swap!

My Secret Santa was Rob from Books Are Like Candy Corn, and boy did he spoil me. He lives in Hawaii and so he sent a Hawaiian-themed holiday card and a collection of Hawaiian holiday music (which my husband and I LOVE–this CD has become our #1 choice for dinner music), Island Princess macadamia nut/caramel popcorn which was delicious and, uh, disappeared quickly. (Wonder how that happened?) Mango coconut lotion and a fun Origami Kit. As if that wasn’t enough, a copy of Sarah Dessen’s The Truth About Forever! Sarah Dessen is one of my favorite authors and this is probably my favorite title. It’s a book I would definitely reread and markup, but I didn’t have my own copy–until now!

Opening these gifts was so much fun and immediately launched me into the holiday spirit. Thank you, Rob, for starting my holidays off on a wonderful note! If you haven’t visited Rob’s blog before, I definitely recommend it. He writes about a variety of things including mysteries, food, fiction, and classics. He shared a recipe he uses for a Scandinavian Christmas rice pudding called Rikstrem that I’m planning to try one day soon. (Seeing as I’m half-Norwegian, I was a little embarrassed that I’ve never even heard of this before. I need to get more in touch with my cultural roots!)

After receiving Rob’s great gift, I was excited to shop for my Secret Santee and pass on the joy of receiving a surprise gift. My Secret Santee was Aarti who blogs at Book Lust. It was fun to shop for her and it was also fun to be introduced to her blog–she has a lot of great reviews over there and I’ve already added several things to my “Read Someday” list. (Including one of her recent posts about the BBC A History of the World in 100 Objects podcasts.)

Hope your holidays have been filled with fun surprises too!