Candy Cane Necktie!

I got my first Christmas present today! I mean besides the usual "you work with me and it's Christmas so HERE! Have an ornament!" sort of presents.

It's a Christmas present from my job! Yep, one of those "you work for me and it's Christmas so HERE! Have some office supplies!" sort of presents.

Everybody at work got one of these baskets, but I am one of two men who work there so originally they had a basket that had lotion and pink office stuff in it that they thought about giving me, but decided to give me this basket a day later instead. This basket is blue.

It has:

1. A pink and dark purple striped candy cane that tastes like... pink. It tastes like the color pink.
2. A tin of Hello Kitty mints. Sour Strawberry mints. She's wearing glasses.
3. A packet of blank, mini greeting cards with one of those "Achievement" posters on the front and a quote from Ben Franklin.
4. A notebook in the shape of a smartphone. It's bigger than a smartphone, but smaller than a tablet computer. "So it's the size of a mini-tablet?" you ask. I don't know. I've never seen one of those in person.
5. A magnetic notepad with Mickey Mouse on top. One of those things that you can stick to your fridge or filing cabinet to use for grocery lists and to write down phone messages, but will most likely lose in a stack of papers where it will stay unused until you either throw it away or find it again, set it aside to use, and lose it in another stack of papers.
6. The wicker basket, I guess. I hate wicker. It doesn't please me asthetically and it breaks after minimal use.

That was all of the office supply/standard Christmasy stuff (candy cane), but there was one more item my basket had that the baskets for the lady-types did not... a CANDY CANE TIE!

That's a picture I took of myself in the candy cane tie. Near my head you see a snowflake I made to help decorate the preschool room where I work. We had the one-year-olds I teach crayon all over pages of blue and white paper which I folded and cut into four-point snowflakes. I found out after the fact that snowflakes actually have six points. I made the six-point snowflake in the picture and now the rest of them hanging all around the room no longer look like snowflakes to me. They look like paper doilies.

Back to the Candy Cane Tie! It's wonderfully Christmasy! It's bright green and has candy canes and round peppermint discs. The back has a loop of black material instead of the usual flat loop that most neckties I own or have worn in the past feature for wrangling the smaller end of the tie.

What do you call that thing? *Googles it* "Keeper Loop"... I guess that makes sense.

But you haven't heard the best part yet...

It plays Jingle Bells! Check out this shakey video!

Ahhh Peanuts Creche. It's not really the Christmas season until I put you up.

So that's it! That's my first Christmas present for 2013! What's yours?

P.S. Want to give me my next Christmas present? Link to the Ponder Couch Christmas Wishlist.