We're lucky enough to be in Maine with our families, enjoying two Thanksgiving meals that we aren't cooking ourselves. We're also staying a few days with each side of the family, getting to watch Will play with his grandparents and greatly benefitting from their hospitality and home cooked meals.
To show them how much we appreciate being home for the holidays, we put together gift baskets for each family with some specially picked treats. Will and I took a walk to our local cheese and specialty goods store where we picked out things like squash ravioli, candied cashews, and specialty teas and crackers for the gift baskets. Greg picked out some special jams to add, and of course we had to put in some coffee since this time of year relatives manage to clean out our dads' supplies pretty quickly.
We finished the packages off with some homemade truffles, using recipes we found at www.marthastewart.com. Surprisingly easy, unsurprisingly tasty.
In previous years I've had trouble deciding what to put little gift assortments in - I don't have gift baskets lying around, and the recipients don't need a little wicker basket on top of their consumable goodies.
This year I came up with a solution I'm mostly happy with. We took a double layer of cardboard taped with packing tape and wrapped it with a solid gift wrap to make a durable and colorful base for the items. Then we arranged everything, cut pieces of cellophane wrap (available at craft stores and some grocery stores) and tied the tops with wraphia and a small handwritten note.
I wish they didn't use plastic, but they look great and were very easy to assemble. No box hiding half the items either :)
