Getting gifts from Santa for Christmas is plenty exciting — but so is getting personalized gifts at random from Bill Gates.
The story begins with Reddit's annual Secret Santa gift exchange, which this year saw more than 120,000 participants sign up to send each other gifts.
And yes, one of the world's wealthiest men was among them.
Reddit user NY1227, who goes by Rachel, was halfway through her package before she realized she'd been matched up with Gates, who appeared in a photo holding a stuffed cow.
The cow represented a donation Gates had made in Rachel's name to Heifer International, a charity that provides needy families with livestock for agricultural and commercial support.
Rachel, who didn't give her last name, recounted the experience in a later post on Reddit's gifts page.
"Never in my entire life did I imagine, ever, ever, ever that Bill would get me. I am SO SO thankful for the time, thought and energy he put into my gift."
Gates himself isn't a stranger to Reddit, if including a message and photographic proof of his identity in Rachel's gift wasn't enough of an indicator.
He did the same thing earlier this year. He hosted an ask-me-anything thread, or AMA, in which he fielded questions from the rest of the Reddit userbase.
He discussed everything from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's efforts to eradicate disease to the Mac vs. PC debate.
That debate sort of came up in the Secret Santa event, as well. Rachel had asked for an iPad, you see. She couldn't have known her list was going to the former CEO of Microsoft.
