It's time for today's Annual Work Party Recap! Or specifically, the "Thieving Santa" game shenanigans.

I got the crackassed idea last week that I could try to whip up some kind of ugly holiday sweater to wear to the party this year. You would think that I, a person who embraces every damn tacky-ass thing, would have this already. I used to--I was quite the blingy tacky holiday girl growing up-- but I sadly pretty much grew out of it upon moving away for college and having a limited amount of storage space and holidays stopping being fun and all that jazz. So I no longer OWN any such things, which is kinda sad. (I do, however, have this hat I made a few years ago. People love this thing.) And somehow whenever I buy replacement holiday earrings, they break within a month of getting them...I have one surviving Christmas tree beaded necklace I made myself years back, but my frighteningly extensive Christmas bling collection I had growing up is pretty much inaccessible to me unless I can climb a pile o' crap that grew in my childhood bedroom.

Anyway, last Tuesday I was looking at tacky holiday sweaters and started looking around on Ravelry to see if there were any patterns for such. This year, I found one that looked quick and promising to try. Between that and finding a "DIY Ugly Holiday Sweater Kit" at Urban Outfitters recently... I was all, "HEY, I COULD TOTALLY DO ONE OF THESE FOR A HOLIDAY PARTY!" Except both of mine are this week and the first one is Tuesday (i.e. today).

Problems with this being that (a) I had less than a week to pull this off even if most of those days were vacation, (b) even I cannot make a whole damn sweater in a week, even in crochet, and (c) I am freaking insane. So I got as far along as making some ornaments to hang on myself....and I attempted to do some felting along those lines but never finished that...and then oh yeah, I got sick. And I didn't find any sweaters I wanted to bedeck at thrift stores anyway. Long story short, I tried putting together a DIY ugly holiday sweater last night and it came out like this. Um....nope. So I just went in green velvet, like usual. Maybe next year.

This year I bought a magic explode-y music playing birthday candle (YouTube link) as my office gift. I was rather disappointed it was opened third to the last, and while it did go to someone whose birthday was in December, I suspect she was not so into the idea. I really need to either pick out bigger gifts or use more flamboyant wrapping so mine get opened earlier in the game--I think this could have been fun to having going around had it not come out at the end. Then again, maybe not--my coworkers were mostly stealing coffee, coffee mugs, chocolate, beer, and wine off of each other repeatedly, or candles or frames, so that seems to be the Adult Thing. I, on the other hand, got Square Shooters, which no one stole from me. I am always pleased to get a new game in these things, so go me. I pondered picking out the gifts that turned out to be beer (see below) or an M&M dispenser...the latter got stolen, so I'm glad I didn't go for it. (Added bonus points for "You stole that from a disabled woman" since that chick dislocated her shoulder or something like that.) And since I don't like beer, ditto. The only other thing I might have gone for was the Jenga, but I'm good either way. There was also an Elf on the Shelf....but that is not my thing.

As for the chick who drew the beer, I wrote down directly what she said about it: "My husband is a very large, fast man. If this gets stolen, I will have to tell him who stole it. I'm just saying. He can run marathons, so you better be prepared to run a looooooooong way." It was stolen (the nerve of that guy!), and then she drew some wine thing. Which was then stolen by a chick who claimed she had a party to go to on Saturday--someone yelled out that it was going to be gone by the end of the day. The first chick then managed to get the beer back, so good for her.
Another coworker of mine had a penguin cookie jar stolen from her, but she managed to get it back. The coworker next to me...I think she got stolen from four times since she was #1 in the draw, including by her own boss. I find it amusing that the person who doesn't drink keeps drawing booze on her first time unwrapping gifts. (Though as someone else pointed out, if you keep going for the long and pointy wrapped items....) Luckily for her, she got stolen from...quite a bit.

As usual, a good time was had by all, even if the catering was rather...so-so. But, whatever.

In other news....I canceled (sort of) my Zipcar reservation today. Which is to say, I dropped down to a "you can use a car Monday through Thursday on a pay as you go basis if you like, no annual fee" plan, which works just fine for me. They've been good to me as I learned to drive through all of this.

That, alas, is the part of the day I CAN talk about. Another friend of mine is in dire straits and asked me for help, but it's not the sort of thing I particularly want to talk about online when someone else is in the soup like that. At least I can help if nobody else can. And....I found out something that.... again, can't say due to reasons of Internet (groan), but I'm rather floored and REALLY wish I could debate with folks about it. Counseling appointment time should be interesting next week.

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