When the Secret Santa people thought up the idea of Secret Santa I expect they envisaged the good feeling of being able to make participating webloggers feel ridiculously chuffed to receive an unasked for gift. But I bet they didn't ever think that somewhere there would be one particular weblogger who, when she received her gift, was so happy that she actually danced around her kitchen and wore the smile of a cheshire cat for the rest of the day.

You see it's not simply that I like receiving presents, which I do of course, especially when (rattles gift expectantly) it's a book, because you know already how I feel about books. No the thing that made me gloriously happy was what my particular Secret Santa wrote on the very little and normally unassuming gift tag.

Because my Secret Santa wrote this:

A Merry Christmas from your Secret Santa! Your weblog is a joy to read. I really like your writing style.

Mine! My writing style! My Secret Santa, who has never met me and who knew nothing about me read my blog to see what kind of person I was before buying me a present, and liked it so much they decided to write that on the tag.

It's truly my best Christmas present. I feel so inspired now. I feel inspired to transcribe the book (which I once laboured over a typewriter to write) onto my computer and make it better. I feel inspired to keep writing things, just for the sake of writing, keeping my hand in. And most of all I feel good, which is a lovely, new feeling.

Begone self doubt!

Secret Santa; Thank you. From the very bottom of my happy, brimming-with-confidence tingling toes!