Am I The Grinch?

OK, so all of my co-workers gave me Christmas gifts. Ornaments that don't match my tree, candy and a notebook, and a $25 gift card to Legal Sea Foods (holy cow!). One even said, "Next year, we should just all go out to lunch instead of these obligatory $5 gifts." I didn't get them anything... except for the two I work with most closely (which I blogged about last week). Am I jerk? Probably. But I barely bought my own family gifts this year. I guess I could've just done cards or something nice but it's too late now. Just blame it on being knew and honestly not knowing people did gifts around here.

Reading my mind

My family (well, mostly me) uses Amazon's Wish List feature for gift ideas, especially those small stocking stuffer type gifts. I literally put every brand of beauty, cosmetic and cleaning product I use on there so they don't buy me Crest toothpaste (I use Sensodyne) or something.

Back on Nov. 29, I found a really pretty yellow necklace on Etsy that I wanted. I had been wanting one for a while, most specifically back in October when I had to work an event with a Bruins player and had nothing yellow (ahem, "gold") to complement my black dress. Since then, I've gone to two Bruins games with my dad and came from work both times, so I was in cute work clothes as opposed to Bruins gear, and I WISHED I had some yellow jewelry.

So, I added said necklace to my Amazon Wish List. Forgot all about it, actually.

Today, my boss and co-worker and I exchanged gifts. The three of us are our own team within the bigger media relations team within the even bigger communications department. MY BOSS GOT ME THE EXACT YELLOW NECKLACE THAT I NEVER TOLD ANYONE BUT MY AMAZON WISH LIST ABOUT. How crazy is that?! She doesn't have access to it, but she knows I like going to Bruins games with my dad and that I often meet him right after work. And, she knows me well enough to know my style. Nailed it!

She also got me a very pretty cosmetic bag from West Elm. My co-worker got my a fuzzy ball winter hat that actually keeps my ears warm, unlike my other one which is thinly knit and barely provides any warmth, as well as a copper "K" wine stopper and a photo frame/ornament with a little dog on it - OBVIOUSLY a photo of Rags is going in that one.

I don't have a lot to spend on gifts this year, so I decided to make a majority of all the gifts I'm giving. For my boss and co-worker, I picked up a box of four stemless wine glasses for - I think - $8 at TJ Maxx. I got out my ginormous bag of acrylic paint and a box of Q-tips, and went to work “dotting” the bottom of the glasses. I did two in warm shades and two in cool shades. Then I baked them at 350’ for 30 minutes, and voila!

They both said they loved them, and appreciated that they were handmade. I gave the bluish ones to my co-worker and the pink ones to my boss as I thought they suited their personalities and styles best. I was going to tell them they could trade or mix & match but they opened them at different times and seemed content with what they got. Success No. 1 of my handmade gift-giving Christmas.

Recommendations for fellow bookworms

If you're looking for quick, easy reads during the holidays, I recommend the two books I loved most in the past year. The first is John Green's The Fault in Our Stars. I read it right after Peter Heller's The Dog Stars and the two couldn't be more different. I was just on a star kick, I guess.

I read The Fault in Our Stars the weekend before I started my new job. If you know where I work, you'll know that reading about adolescents with cancer was good preparation for me. It was fiction of course, but it provided a viewpoint of teenage cancer that we don't often see.

It's been made in to a movie that premieres June 6, starring Shailene Woodley. I'll be seeing this one in theaters (and I see maybe three movies a year in the theater - tops!). Maybe you've never heard of Shailene. She starred in The Secret Life of the American Teenager, and aboslutely dreadful show on ABC Family that I could not stop watching until the final season (which I still need to do). She was the only redeeming factor on that show. She'll also be starring in my other favorite book-turned-movie in 2014...

The Divergent series sounds a lot like The Hunger Games. Set in dystopian Chicago, 16-year-olds must decide whether they remain faithful to their families and upbringing by remaining in their original "faction," or if they want to start over with a new life, abandoning their families and friends for good. There are five factions - Abnegation (selflessness), Amity (peace), Candor (honesty) Dauntles (brave), and Erudite (knowledge). There's fighting and death and love, but the aside from those aspects, it's nothing at all like The Hunger Games. The subsequent books, Insurgent and Allegiant are equally as good. So good that I actually pre-ordered Allegiant (I NEVER pay for books) and it was delivered wirelessly to my Kindle in the wee morning hours the day it came out. By the time I got to work that morning, I was about 50 pages in.

I dragged my dad to Catching Fire on Thanksgiving night, and without having read the books or see The Hunger Games, I expected him to be totally lost and bored. He was not. We had a great discussion on the ride home about how clever Katniss is and how technologically advanced the Capitol is. But admittedly, my favorite part of the movie was actually the preview for Divergent, which premieres on March 21. I'll be seeing that one in the theater, too!

I don't anticipate either movie will be nominate for an Oscar or a Golden Globe, mostly because the target audience is probably the 16-24 age group. And based on my love of these two books, I'm guessing I still identify as a 24-year-old. It was one of my best years!