Spending quality time with family and friends during the holiday season can be the most exciting and rewarding experience for many people. But for others, their time is even more gratifying if they honor their relationships by giving their loved ones exhilarating presents. So Shockya has complied a list of the most thrilling and intriguing rewards of 2015 with a festive holiday gift guide, which is in part inspired by some of everyone’s favorite celebrities.

One of the most celebrated gifts in recent years is the holiday sweater, which many people love to wear for any occasion, especially parties. The inventive Scottish-based website, MorphCostumes, features such creative designs as the Moving Eyes Rudolph Sweater for those people who love Christmas’ iconic reindeer. For those relatives and friends who love their digital devices, shoppers can buy a traditional Christmas Sweater with a twist-the Knitted Crackling Fireplace Ugly Christmas Sweater, which features a flame iPhone app. Many of the MorphCostumes sweaters retail for $59.99, and are available in sizes small to to XX-large.

Check out some of the most intriguing holiday sweaters that have been worn by celebrities below.

Martin Freeman Love Actually Sweater
Actor Martin Freeman wears a holiday sweater in his hit comedy, ‘Love Actually.’

While people often have fun dressing up in jovial sweaters as they celebrate the holidays with their friends and family, they still dream of escaping into a virtual reality that allows them to carry out their biggest fantasies. Merge VR, the world’s best virtual reality headset for mobile VR, has finally brought computer-simulated realism to smartphone. The company will transform people’s phones into a fully-immersive, interactive dream world that responds to your movement and touch with their new goggles.

Sculpted of soft and lightweight foam that fits comfortably to the contours of everyone’s face, the Merge VR Goggles are compatible with any iOS or Android smartphone. Its innovative dual inputs allow the user to perform two different actions while fully immersed in virtual reality. Users can access ton new virtual reality films, music videos, games and special content; the full list of VR content can be found on the company’s website. The Merge VR Goggles are available for $79.

Merge VR Virtual Reality
Merge VR Virtual Reality Goggles

While people can often change their moods by entering into another reality, they can also improve their relatives and friends’ attitudes with the alluring gift of Acorelle perfume. The French company has launched an exciting collaboration between master perfumer Philippe Collet and aromatherapist Patty Canac, called extraits d’ emotions. People who receive the Acorelle perfume as a gift will instantly feel uplifted, as extraits d’emotion are the only fragrances certified by Europe’s ECOCERT as all natural and organic.

Acorelle fragrances contain no synthetic scent compounds, artificial preservatives parabens or phthalates, which are substances that are believed to cause endocrine damage. The artisan perfumers are fresh and organic, as they’re made with a scent palette of approximately 200 all-natural, plant and flower extracts and oils. Carnac advises the team and oversees the aromatheraputic benefits of each scent, in an effort to assure their effectiveness.

Collet and Canac have formulated three collections of all-natural scents for Acorelle, which are intended to soothe, uplift and exhilarate. Each collection has its own theme, including Energizing, which features the scents Tea Garden, Pure Patchouli and Land of Cedar; Balancing, which includes the fragrances Silken Rose, Absolu Tiare, and Vanilla Blossom; and Soothing, which comprises of Divine Orchid, Citrus Infusion and Lotus Dream. Each individual perfume features essential oils that can renew physical and mental energy, enhance sensuality or comfort and calm its wearers.

In addition to the three main fragrance collections, Acorelle, whose fragrances are available at select Whole Foods markets and other health food stores and upscale spas, also produces three body mists: energizing Ocean Sage, soothing Exquisite Vanilla and balancing Pure Fruit. These ultra-light body sprays are softly fragrant, and enhanced with vegetable glycerin, which helps to hydrate and soften the skin. They are perfect post work out or for a quick pick-me-up during the work day.

Acorelle perfume
Acorelle perfume

While those celebrating the holidays can bond over the luxurious scents and health benefits of Acorelle perfume, those who wish to reward another sense of their family and friends, notably hearing, can do so with exciting new music box sets. Universal Music has released a playlist full of Christmas classics and current holiday hits on Spotify that includes such singers as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande and Sam Smith.

But for those music aficionados who wish to own famed music collections, Amazon is selling boxed sets for Grammy Award-winning artists John Lennon, The Rolling Stones and Kurt Cobain. A nine LP box set for Lennon is being sold on vinyl for $151.59, and audio CD for $699.99. The Rolling Stones’ 1971 studio album, ‘Sticky Fingers,’ is being sold as a Super Deluxe Box Set, which includes three CD, a DVD and vinyl, for $139.09. The music of the Nirvana singer is being sold in ‘Montage Of Heck: The Home Recordings,’ a Super Deluxe Box Set that features a Blu-ray, DVD, CD and cassette, for $127.98.

Listen to Universal Music’s Christmas playlist below.

John Lennon Vinyl Box Set
John Lennon Vinyl Box Set
The Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers Deluxe
The Rolling Stones ‘Sticky Fingers’ Deluxe Box Set
Kurt Cobain Montage of Heck Box Set
Kurt Cobain ‘Montage of Heck: The Home Recordings’ Box Set

As your family and friends are enjoying wearing their new clothes and fragrances, and listening to some of the greatest rock music in history, as they enter their virtual reality, they’re also going to want to enjoy a festive holiday dinner together. One enthralling gift for any man is the Spartan 2.0 Special Edition Knife Block, which is crafted into the shape of a Spartan soldier from American maple and black walnut wood. The knife block, which doesn’t include a knife set, amusingly looks like a Spartan is under attack. The Spartan 2.0 Special Edition Knife Block is being sold for $79 and is only available from Missing Digit Woodshop.

Spartan 2.0 Special Edition Knife Block
Spartan 2.0 Special Edition Knife Block

After you finish using your new Spartan 2.0 Special Edition Knife Block to make your family and friends and impressive holiday dinner, you can also please the horror fans of the group with the home releases of the hit zombie series, ‘The Walking Dead,’ and its new companion show, ‘Fear the Walking Dead.’ Anchor Bay Entertainment recently released the Limited Edition Blu-ray + Digital HD of ‘The Walking Dead: The Complete Fifth Season,’ as well as the Blu-ray and DVD of ‘Fear The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season.’ The home release of both critically acclaimed horror drama series has become a highly anticipated annual tradition for ‘The Walking Dead’ fans.

As with previous limited editions of the original series, which was developed by Frank Darabont, McFarlane Toys has once again created a striking, must-own packaging concept. This year’s Limited Edition features an asphalt walker, one of the many unforgettable images that have made the AMC series, which is based on the comic book series of the same name by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard, a global phenomenon. The figurine is based on the original walker designed by award-winning SFX make-up Supervisor and Executive Producer, Greg Nicotero. The packaging also includes a collectible five-disc Blu-ray set digipack with exclusive walker cover art, which is only available with the set. The set’s suggested retail price is $149.99.

‘The Walking Dead’s home release includes audio commentaries with showrunner-executive producer-writer Scott M. Gimple, executive producer Gale Anne Hurd, executive producer Tom Luse, executive producer-special effects make-up supervisor-director Greg Nicotero and director Julius Ramsay; and actors Lauren Cohan, Chad L. Coleman, Michael Cudlitz, Sonequa Martin-Green, Danai Gurira, Alanna Masterson, Melissa McBride, Josh McDermitt, Norman Reedus, Christian Serratos and Steven Yeun. The discs also include deleted scenes, as well as the featurettes ‘Inside The Walking Dead,’ ‘The Making of The Walking Dead,’ ‘The Making of Alexandria,’ ‘Beth’s Journey,’ ‘Bob’s Journey,’ ‘Noah’s Journey, Tyreese’s Journey,’ ‘A Day in the Life of Michael Cudlitz,’ ‘A Day in the Life of Josh McDermitt’ and ‘Rotters in the Flesh.’

‘Fear the Walking Dead’ was created by Kirkman and Dave Erickson, who also serves as the showrunner and one of the producers and writers on the series. The first season’s Blu-ray and DVD come after the drama premiered in August as the #1 show in cable history. The two-disc sets include character bios as well as ‘A Look at the Series.’

Living in the same universe as ‘The Walking Dead,’ ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ is a gritty drama that explores the onset of the undead apocalypse through the lens of a fractured family. Set in Los Angeles, a city where people come to escape, shield secrets, and bury their pasts, a mysterious outbreak threatens to disrupt what little stability high school guidance counselor Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) and English teacher Travis Manawa (Cliff Curtis) have managed to assemble. The everyday pressure of blending two families while dealing with resentful, escapist, and strung out children takes a back seat when society begins to break down. A forced evolution, a necessary survival of the fittest takes hold, and the dysfunctional family must either reinvent themselves or embrace their darker histories.

Check out ‘The Walking Dead’ and ‘Fear the Walking Dead’s Limited Edition discs, Blu-ray covers and asphalt walker figurine below.

The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead Limited Edition Home Release Sets
‘The Walking Dead’ and ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ Limited Edition Home Release Sets
Fear the Walking Dead Blu-ray and DVD Covers
‘Fear the Walking Dead’ Blu-ray and DVD Covers
The Walking Dead asphalt walker figurine
‘The Walking Dead’ asphalt walker figurine
'The Walking Dead' Season 5 Limited Edition Discs
‘The Walking Dead’ Season 5 Limited Edition Discs

Written by: Karen Benardello

By Karen Benardello

As a graduate of LIU Post with a B.F.A in Journalism, Print and Electronic, Karen Benardello serves as ShockYa's Senior Movies & Television Editor. Her duties include interviewing filmmakers and musicians, and scribing movie, television and music reviews and news articles. As a New York City-area based journalist, she's a member of the guilds, New York Film Critics Online and the Women Film Critics Circle.

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