Bill Gates Thought His Secret Santa Blew Him Off

Reddit, a site where people can post and chat about anything, hosts the biggest Secret Santa gift exchange program in the world. (It set a Guinness World Record in 2013.)

Thousands participated, including Reddit lover Bill Gates.

So what do you get the world's richest man if you are selected to be his Secret Santa?

He thought he got ditched last year, and he didn't get his gifts this year until Wednesday.

Gates told Reddit during an Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) session on Wednesday:

It is quite a coincidence but my gift arrived this morning. I got three cool things - a great quilt that a group of people did with a Snoo on it. A great jug of maple syrup and the book The Promise of a Pencil. All very thoughtful. Last year I waited and nothing came. ...

Reddit users were incensed that Gates got ditched, but it turns out, he wasn't.

During his AMA, Reddit tracked the gift down. Gates explained:

EDIT: Reddit just let me know that I did get a gift last year: a generous donation to Heifer International, a great non-profit that helps fight poverty and hunger around the world. So, thank you /u/SailorKingCobra, my Secret Santa!

He was clearly happy with his 2014 booty, too. He posted this photo:

The book, "The Promise of a Pencil" seems especially appropriate for Gates. It's the story of how a teen hedge fund prodigy turned $25 into enough money to build more than 200 schools around the world.

We're not really sure what the maple syrup is all about, but, hey, even billionaires must love maple syrup.

For his part, Gates gave his 2014 Secret Santa recipient a really thoughtful gift.

He was matched to a 25-year-old woman named Cali, and he bought her "pie in the sky wish" of a Loki helmet, a book of gorgeous pictures of Africa (a place she says she desperately wants to visit), a stuffed polio virus microbe, and a donation in her name to Shot@Life, a program that provides vaccines to kids in poor countries who need them.

Here's a picture of Cali with her helmet and signed card.

Moral of the story: Everyone, even the world's richest man, likes to get gifts in the mail.