I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! Right now my neighbors’ kids are outside playing with water guns in the  74 degree weather, so it doesn’t feel very Christmas-like!

Even though it’s hot and muggy outside, I wanted to share a really cool Christmas gift with you before we all shift gears to making our resolutions and planning for 2016. But first, a little back story.

I am a huge fan of Andrew Peterson’s music, as I mentioned I my last post. AP isn’t just a singer/songwriter. He is also a writer, and several years ago he started an online community for Christian artists of all kinds–writers, musicians, and visual artists. The community is called “The Rabbit Room,” and it’s named after the room in an Oxford pub where C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and their group, “The Inklings” met to read and discuss each other’s work (See picture below of me being really excited to see the Rabbit Room in person).

Visiting the real Rabbit Room on my 20th birthday

Well, the Rabbit Room does all kinds of cool things, but one of my favorites is their annual gift exchange. Anyone is welcome to participate, and it’s basically a cross-country secret Santa. I’ve participated twice and sent gifts to people in Tennessee and Ohio. Everyone posts a little info about themselves so your secret Santa isn’t completely in the dark, but it’s an amazing way to show the love of Christmas to people all over the country who enjoy the same things.

This year the gift I received was too awesome not to share! It was a box full of books and music. I’m really looking forward to breaking into these in the new year. Check it out:

Some great Rabbit Room artist CDs. I actually bought the Andy Gullahorn album at the Behold the Lamb of God concert, but he fits in the group, so I thought I’d include it!
The Rabbit Room also operates a small publishing house, and all of the books I received are their publications.

This is The Rabbit Room Press’s newest book, published this year. It’s a memoir and I’ve heard great things about it.

Another memoir that I’ve been wanting to read. If 2015 was the year of great nonfiction, maybe 2016 will be the year of the memoir.

A. S. (Pete) Peterson is one of the contributing writers at the Rabbit Room, and he manages their daily operations. If you purchase anything from the Rabbit Room store, his name appears on the shipping label.

These are his two historical fiction novels. I’m really excited to add them to the list!

The most fun part is finding out where your gift came from and who sent it. When I got the box I noticed that the return address label was the same label as all of the packages I receive from the Rabbit Room. I assumed someone had ordered my books through the store and simply had them shipped to my house.

There was no card inside the box, so that might be what happened, but upon closer inspection I noticed that A. S. Peterson’s books were autographed…

Does that mean he is my secret Santa? If so, how cool is the Internet? How cool is the Rabbit Room?!

Considering that I’m usually the one who ends up with toilet paper after a secret Santa exchange, I’ll take this gift any day.

Keep Reading! And check out the rabbit room at www.rabbitroom.com.