Advent Calendar Day 17: Secret Santa – When Bill Gates sends you presents

Lucky woman gets Bill Gates as her Secret Santa – here’s what he sent her

Few people can claim one of the world’s richest men as their “Secret Santa.” But that’s what happened with one lucky Reddit user, when she discovered that the person behind her generous gifts through Reddit’s holiday gift exchange was none other than Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

For the last few years, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates has been making one person’s Christmas a little bit more special by taking part in Reddit’s Secret Santa present exchange.

Nearly 60,000 users across 120 countries take part in the Reddit Gifts scheme – including the Microsoft mogul, who sent a box crammed with presents to a woman named Aerrix Laurel.

Ms Laurel received the parcel via Fed Ex and uploaded photos of her incredible haul to Reddit.

The Redditor known as Aerrix described how thrilled she was when she opened the giant box that was mailed to her from her Secret Santa.

“So then I get the box open and there’s just bubble wrap EVERYWHERE, but under the first layer I see a picture… and my jaw. Just. Drops. I will let the picture speak for itself! I immediately call my husband at work, I normally text him first to make sure it’s ok if I call but I couldn’t wait…he answered and I spoke very quietly because I knew if I didn’t I would just yell, and I said something like “dear, please tell me you can talk right now,” and he sounded worried and he’s like “yes? What’s going on?” And I said BILL GATES IS MY FREAKIN SANTA!!!!!!!! I worried him too much, it took a second for it to sink in but oh MAN I was excited and flipping out!” she wrote.

The parcel contained around 10 gift-wrapped packages which included:

An Xbox One

Xbox Controllers

A NES Classic Edition

Some Bluerays

Matching Zelda mittens for her and her dog Claire

Harry Potter-themed slippers

a paper “Zelda” “Master Sword,”

Cajun cookbooks,

And a photo of Aerrix, her partner, her dog – and a photoshopped-in Bill Gates

Also in the box was a note from Mr Gates saying:

Dear Aerrix,

“I can’t believe your Secret Santa left you hanging last year. To ensure you don’t lose faith in the Reddit Community I’ve enclosed several gifts that I hope you enjoy. There are a few video games for you to play, some things to keep you warm, and three of my favorite movies to watch over the holidays.

“I’ve also made a donation in your name to Code.org to help give more students the chance to learn computer science.

“With Best Wishes from Seattle, Bill Gates.

“P.S. I won’t be able to consult with the Sorting Hat but I can tell that you are quite clever – so I got a pair of Ravenclaw slippers from Hot Topic.”

“I would love to send a thank you card or some kind of something to him,” Ms Laurel told The Huffington Post.

“There was a return address, but I’m not sure if it would actually get to him.”

source: The Telegraph

Interesting Facts about Bill Gates

Can yo fill in the gaps in the sentences with a word from the table?

1. Bill’s …… as a child was “Trey” which was given to him by his grandmother.

2. He scored a 1590 out of 1600 on the …… .

3. At first Microsoft had a …… in the name “Micro-soft”. It was a combination of microcomputer and software.

4. When Microsoft first started out, Gates would look at every line of code before a new software product …… .

5. In 2004, Gates predicted that …… spam would be gone by 2006. He was wrong on that one!

6. He was dubbed an honorary knight by Queen Elizabeth. He does not use the title “Sir” because he is not a …… of the United Kingdom.

Key

1. nickname 2. SAT 3. hyphen 4. shipped 5. email 6. citizen