Hey Pinsider Secret Santa fam - my gifts arrived from my SS a few days ago, but things have been really crazy and I finally have the time to post. My Secret Santa hit all the right notes this year with some seriously cool stuff!
Here's a shot of my loot before tearing in...
The spread...
The reveal!
Gifts revealed!
Love the graphic novel - I've heard so much about this and Jon Chad is phenomenal. Can't wait to read! The tasty treats are fantastic - love the Green Bay touch and I hadn't experienced the bliss of Dot's Pretzels until now. Pretzels and honey mustard aren't snacks I'd typically go for first, but I would eat this entire bag in one sitting - magical! My wife was a big fan as well, so we'll be buying these regularly from now on.
This card is so much fun - looking forward to assembling and admiring it!
Papercraft pinball card!
Always a sucker for retro arcade swag. I'll be proudly wearing this Donkey Kong T-shirt for sure!!
Donkey Kong T-shirt!
Last but not least...
Artovision 3D Pinball Backglass
Probably my favorite gift out of all of these! I've always looked at Artovision 3D's merch but never pulled the trigger to get one. This thing is fantastic - so cool with wonderfully vintage art. 2D pics don't really do it justice. I haven't had the chance to play a North Star, so hopefully I get to in the future!! Thanks again, Wisconsin Secret Santa! I've had a lot of fun with folks from your state when it comes to SS! Thanks again to John for another great year as well!Happy holidays, Pinsiders!!!
-Joel
Quoted from PismoArcade:Looks like I'm getting.....
A heartfelt wish for you and your loved ones to have a very Merry Christmas !
LTG : )
Quoted from LTG:A heartfelt wish for you and your loved ones to have a very Merry Christmas !
LTG : )
Merry Christmas, Lloyd!
Quoted from PismoArcade:No packages shown to be delivered today. Tomorrow is Sunday and Monday is Christmas. Just happy to see that the recipient of my SS package really liked it! Looks like I'm getting.....
Looks like yours is scheduled for delivery on Dec. 26th. I'll send you the tracking number.
Quoted from PismoArcade:No packages shown to be delivered today. Tomorrow is Sunday and Monday is Christmas. Just happy to see that the recipient of my SS package really liked it! Looks like I'm getting.....
I'm starting to wonder if I'm in the same boat as you!
Quoted from LesManley:Looks like yours is scheduled for delivery on Dec. 26th. I'll send you the tracking number.
(Un)Boxing day!
I got a heads up from Les that my gift has a perishable in it, so no more waiting for Christmas! My Santa is pretty awesome and made me a ton of really awesome accessories for my games. All of it is really cool, and I especially like the coasters.
My wife also happens to be from Wisconsin and is very excited about the cheese curds.
Quoted from LesManley:Looks like yours is scheduled for delivery on Dec. 26th. I'll send you the tracking number.
Woo Hoo! Thanks Les (and Santa!)
Santa came last night for the kids since we're leaving town. Got to open this up today.
I'm a big octopus fan so the T-shirt is awesome. The magazine looks cool.
Can't have enough glass cleaner. That reminds me...
Pac man socks
Handheld powered screwdriver - should be useful for mods
Mario coin candy
Bowling push pins.
Plus all the food items from last post.
Thanks Santa! Great haul. So generous. The kids will love a few of these things too.
Quoted from gliebig:Something arrived today. [quoted image][quoted image]
Those boxes require Refrigeration, Better open it quickly!
Thank you to my Secret Santa in the beautiful state of Oregon!
His little elves were busy at work and hooked a brother up with a sweet hoodie, vinyl LP of pinball's greatest game sounds, and a Christmas ornament of my family's favorite NHL team!
Evidently the elves also work at the Next Level Pinball Museum in Hillsboro, Oregon - with over 250 pins!! I cannot wait to get back to Oregon where I went to school and play every damn one of them!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, friends! Looking forward to many high scores in 2024!
Cheers,
Eric in the 907
Quoted from EricInAlaska:Thank you to my Secret Santa in the beautiful state of Oregon!
Speaking of Oregon, it's the state where kids stop believing in Santa the earliest at about 7 1/2. Texas is the latest at about 10 1/2. Read a completely unnecessary but interesting news story on it this week.
Quoted from mjg417:Well my Santa nailed it !! got a miniature TAF to sit next to my mini TFTC ,pinball shirt, glass protectors, flipper adjuster and flipper button removal tool.thanks to you and les for running the show.
[quoted image]
What’s the ball gauge for?? Seems cool
Was going to wait until Xmas morning, but caved pretty quickly.
Thank you Santa for the cool gifts. I've been thinking about grabbing one of these arcades for a while. The Mrs is on her way home with some batteries for me.
Had a bit of a downer in the last few months with my father in the hospital. He got transferred to a different facility today and I just got back from spending some time with him. This definitely brightened up my day.
Thank you.
Thank you for the gifts santa can never go wrong with two of my favorite things .
Wish I had the 3d printed table when I was little would always loose mine the magnets are fantastic touch llus the table goes great with the rock and stone cold .
.love the cocktail recipes.
And I can Always go for a 6 pack of beer.
.was going to wait til Christmas but being stuck in the house with covid I changed my plans . Thank you santa and to all of pinside have a merry Christmas and happy new year.
Getting closer to Christmas... Let's open more of the gifts....
Some were specially dedicated to my daughter.
You cannot see it on the picture.... but she has a big smile on her face. Thank you so much Santa!
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And then......... more Dutch food themed packages Always with little notes.
Marzipan!
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Candies!
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These ones have "bacon" written on the package.... can only be good!
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There is even some for the cat!
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There were 3 heavy/dense packages............. a nice little sampling of dutch cheeses... we'll have some on the Christmas cheese plate tonight!
Cheese (resized).PNG
And a yummy "M" !
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So cool to have all these little packages to open... The whole family is thrilled!!
To be continued...
Couldn't wait anymore. Caved in and opened it.
Way cool! Thanks Santa!
World's coolest greeting card that folds into a mini-pinball machine, with ramp and plunger!
Awsome zip hooded sweatshirt (It fits!).
Mini interchangable wrench set.
Balls
Scratch free leg bolt socket
Cherry preserves (Mmmmmmm, cherry)
Doodads and stickers.
Work light (Wow, is that BRIGHT!)
All wrapped with cool notes and labels.
Santa rocks!
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Quoted from TrixTrix:Thanks Secret Santa, package received!! Kitties are getting their treats. Will open other gifts on the day. [quoted image][quoted image]
Opened my other SS gifts today. Got stickers for my laptop and two perfect shirts. Thanks so much Secret Santa. Already wearing the Antikythera shirt! Happy holidays to all and a better time in 2024!
Quoted from atrainn:I got a heads up from Les that my gift has a perishable in it, so no more waiting for Christmas! My Santa is pretty awesome and made me a ton of really awesome accessories for my games. All of it is really cool, and I especially like the coasters.
My wife also happens to be from Wisconsin and is very excited about the cheese curds.
I was most excited about the cyber security comment! That makes at least three of us here!
Quoted from matiou:Getting closer to Christmas... Let's open more of the gifts....
Some were specially dedicated to my daughter.
You cannot see it on the picture.... but she has a big smile on her face. Thank you so much Santa!
[quoted image]
And then......... more Dutch food themed packages Always with little notes.
Marzipan!
[quoted image]
Candies!
[quoted image]
These ones have "bacon" written on the package.... can only be good!
[quoted image]
There is even some for the cat!
[quoted image]
There were 3 heavy/dense packages............. a nice little sampling of dutch cheeses... we'll have some on the Christmas cheese plate tonight!
[quoted image]
And a yummy "M" !
[quoted image]
So cool to have all these little packages to open... The whole family is thrilled!!
To be continued...
The food is sooo cool! I even knew about the chocolate letter because I subscribe to a service called University Yums - cool way to learn more about other counties' food. I hope he sent you some cinnamon star cookies.
Special thanks to Pinsider @bjab. He apparently
saw my posts, and threw a surprise delivery my way to try and lift my holiday spirits.
Very cool custom key rack, and keychains he also made for a few of my games.
Thanks man. Sincerely appreciate the gesture. Already hung it up last night.
Well, I made it to Christmas Eve like I originally hoped (okay, I peaked at the letter last night but that doesn’t count right???). My secret Santa was SO generous and I can’t thank them enough they got me some local goodies (I freaking LOVE the chocolate caramels and chocolate covered potato chips!) and some custom Halloween themed ornaments! My girlfriend hasn’t seen the shining so that’s next on our list for sure. The ornaments went straight on the tree! And finally, the JP inside art blades! I’ve been meaning to pull the trigger on those for awhile just because i think the art blades really complete the “look” of a game but I never got around to it. Must’ve been Santa subconsciously telling me not to order them yet….Thank you so much Santa! You knocked it out of the park!!!
Thank you Santa! I got a star wars pinball shirt, extra rubbers which is going to help alot! I have already started replacing some that needed replaced, a Lego pinball machine that I have already put together, a puzzle to soon begin once I find a frame for it to glue all of the pieces together and put it in it, and a very neat book that seems to be very interesting so far! This is my 1st year of the Pinside secret Santa, this was fun! Looking at all of the gifts everyone has gotten has gave me some cool ideas for next year! Merry Flippin Christmas everyone!
Christmas Eve and I couldn't wait any longer! Gotta say, I'm really disappointed............disappointed I didn't take part in this wonderful Pinside Secret Santa tradition earlier (this is my first year). To my SS - thank you!!! You took a look at my game list and picked out great gifts for some of my favorite games. Wearing the JP shirt now and will snuggle up in the Stranger Things blanket later on to watch A Christmas Story with the family.
And the ST Demogorgon figure - AWESOME! I never really cared for Stern's topper, so this went up as a topper on my game. Now every time I play, I can look up and appreciate your thoughtfulness. Merry Christmas SS - you're the best!
And to the rest of you - Merry Christmas ya filthy animals!!
Was gone 3.5 hours away for a couple days at in-laws.
Now home for an hour, doing a quick turnaround for another 3.5 hrs the complete other direction to family for Xmas.
So figured I’d dig into my secret Santa gift!
Thank you very much! For a sweet Klein magnetic tool for working on games, this will go into my pin-pouch!
And a set of custom cards for the GZ!!
Thx a lot!
Kevin,
Quoted from Fezmid:I was most excited about the cyber security comment! That makes at least three of us here!
I don't think I've ever talked about it on here, so I'm assuming he OSINT'd me
Quoted from atrainn:I don't think I've ever talked about it on here, so I'm assuming he OSINT'd me
My daughter hates when I'm able to find out all sorts of information about her friends and their family. It was especially funny finding a picture of her crush in a family photo where everyone was wearing matching footie pajamas. He was no longer her crush after that.
Dear secret santa
As we always open our presents on the 24th on the evening i could not hold me back to open the carton.
I asked my wife to check befor if the inside is still packed becaus i would't open it then and wait one mor day till tomorrow.
But she was checking and wow so much wrapped up gifts were inside the box. I will wait now until tomorrow to open them, but my Wife told me im like a little child befor the christmas.
Thank you very much for the Letter where you wrote that there is even something for my cats. I had to take a picture for you with one cat wich was a littel confused what im doing, sadly the other is a runaway. Its my first time here and its great to see all these loveley people here spend so much meaningfull thinking of sending gifts to each other.
Can't wait to see whats in all this presents and keep updatet as soon i opened them.
I wish you a wunderfull Holiday season too.
Ps: if i find out we will absolutle meet and have some great time playing Pinball.
Best Luc
Quoted from NatalieB:I made it one day! Seeing all the amazing presents waiting to get unwrapped got the best of me.
Thank you Secret Santa for all the amazing things. From goodies to a Colorado book which I have seen but never got. To tools for me to TRY and fix our pins with, still new, to Mando ornaments and Pez toys. Bonus I got a great shirt to wear to our local pin locations.
Such an amazing first year of Secret Santa!
Thank you so much
[quoted image]
what's that in the cage??
It's got to be a baby chinchilla doesn't it?
Quoted from j_m_:what's that in the cage??
Holy shit how did I miss thiz
Quoted from j_m_:here are pics of my spoils. Thank you SS (whoever you may be
[quoted image]
the haul
[quoted image]a nice note from my SS (something that I forgot to include this year
[quoted image] A cool set of rush 3D printed items (drink coaster and keychain)
[quoted image]now, everyone in my subdivision will bow before my new found mad pinball skillz
[quoted image]given that I have q*bert (that I still need to restore), this should be a great read
[quoted image]a videogame price guide
and last but not least:
[quoted image]
I shot a quick video, because this is something that needs to be seen!!
http://www.phosphors.com/youneedthis/lumalegz.mov
Received two boxes today, one from this year's Santa, and a surprise box from my Santa from last year!
This year's Santa sent me four wrapped presents that will wait until tomorrow to be opened, and last year's Santa got me a Titan Pinball Pinmat!!
My SS package got lost in the pile of amazon packages....
Wife asked why some were wrapped already.
Anyhow, couldn't take the pressure of waiting another 12 hours...
Thank you Secret Santa! I love the shirt and the book, and the lights will go on TMNT LE maybe tomorrow!
Hiya Everyone!
I just wanted to jump on here to let my SS know there has been a delivery issue as a recipient. John has been informed and I will visit the post office this week to make all attempts to track it down.
Thank you so much for the care, effort, and expense with what I am sure is a very thoughtful gift. John is trying to look up the actual ship to address at the moment.
Merry Christmas Everyone!
Thanks to my Secret Santa! Loved the Hoodie and Puzzle and truly appreciate the handwritten note!
My girlfriend got a good chuckle out of the hoodie and asked “Is there something I should know about?” As we are still a little young for kids.
Will definitely be saving it for the future.
I’ll post pictures of the puzzle when we get it all completed.
So sorry, Secret Santa! Package arrived the other day but no one told me in the household! Just realized it as we were doing some Christmas Eve present preparations...will open tomorrow morning! Very excited
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