Mom and I have dragged out our Holiday planners and have starting buying gifts for the little ones. This year, however, we are thinking of giving professional-looking baked goods, attractively packaged, of course, to our friends and family. We came up with a list, and just wondering if anyone has anything to add...
Cookies
Decorated/cutout cookies
Small cakes/petit fours
Cakeballs
Cookie bouquets
Cupcake bouquets
Anyone else?
Also, from another thread, I heard about nashvillewraps.com and ordered their catalog. Received it today and mom and I are so excited to order some of their containers for gift-giving!!
If you are interested, mom and I have been using the free holiday planner from http://organizedchristmas.com/christmas-countdown for eight years now and we love being all done with our shopping and stuff by the second week of December!! Yes, we are psycho! But it's fun to be nuts!
The first three years, I never could finish it all on time, but I've then since mastered the plan.
It's also really nice to go to the mall when it is bustling, enjoy the ambiance, have a cup of coffee, listen to the carolers, and not have to worry about shopping because you are DONE!
Mom thought up another gift, a movie gift basket for a family. Microwave popcorn, movie candy from Walmart, homemade cookies, pizza gift certificate, and a family movie in a large, inexpensive popcorn bowl!
Anyone else?
I'm going to try to print the organizer, and I'm going to show it to a coworker. Going off your mom's idea. What about a family game night basket? Board game, and similar food and snack items from the movie basket. We've done the movie basket before, it goes over really well! We included a Blockbuster or video store certificate because it's $5 compared to a $15 and up DVD.
Ooh, I like the game night basket idea, too! We have a couple of families in the family with three or more kids. Those kids are very high-end, label conscious and expensive to shop for individually! (They don't do Walmart.) They have very busy lives with playdates, sports, activities, mom and dad working, etc. We figure the best thing we can give them for Christmas is some time together as a family.
Mom thought up another gift, a movie gift basket for a family. Microwave popcorn, movie candy from Walmart, homemade cookies, pizza gift certificate, and a family movie in a large, inexpensive popcorn bowl!
I've done this for an office gift exchange. The guy whose name I drew had 4 kids, so it was a Blockbuster certificate, 2 cans of Coke, 4 juice boxes, 2 microwave popcorns, 3 boxes of movie candy in a nice basket. He LUV'D it!! It's pretty inexpensive, too!
A candle basket can be nice and still be inexpensive. I LUV getting those!
My neighbor gave me a Pasta Dinner basket. It had a piece of parmigiana reggiano cheese, some homemade sauce, a couple of different types of pasta (think spinach, tricolor,etc.) a basil plant, some pasta tongs, and some checkered napkins with a bottle or wine in a colander.
The popcorn bowl with the movie stuff is always a big hit with any exchange we have taken it too. I usually find some nice potter popcorn bowls at the kitchen stores in the outlet centers (about $2-6 depending on where I find it and what time of year) I do the individualy packets of microwave popcorn, some of the movie box candies from wal-mart (I mean come on at around a $1 you can't beat it!) and then we do a gift certificate to blockbuster b/c we never know who is going to end up with it so it would be hard to pick out the movies.
Although last year we went through the $1 movie bin at wal-mart and found some old favorites and they were a hit too.
Another year I did an icecream sunday basket (OH i had so much fun with this one) I did four ice cream sundae dishes (98 cents at wal-mart), spoons (4/$1 at walmart and target) some hot fudge, cherries, peanuts, caramel, and some other fun toppings, and don't forget the napkins! I then took a 1/2 gallon of vanilla ice cream with us to the party and just stuck it in the freezer and whoever received the gift just took the icecream home with them. This also went over really well and was a lot of fun... they almost didn't get to take any of it home b/c everyone wanted a sundae after we opened gifts.
Sorry to get all rambly, but I love to do gift baskets. Every christmas we have at least two gift exchanges to go to and our limits are about $15 to $20 so I like a challenge!
I also did a grilling basket one year... found some good utensils on clearence about this time and then added in some steak sauce, marinade, and other seasonings along with a good hot mit and the guys fought over it.
I like the game night one... I may have to use that one this year! Oh and that pasta dinner... hmm... maybe I need to start shopping already. Usually I have about half of the shopping done and I haven't done any this year yet.
Thank you for the link...I need all the help (and tips) I can get! 
Heather
If you're looking for more ideas on baked goods, sweet breads and things like loaves of apple and pear bread always go over well for me!
I always love baskets of bath stuff. Like a couple scented bubble baths, a loofa, shower gel, maybe a gel-eye mask and a couple candles.
I love doing gift baskets! You could also do candy towers. I go and buy the food safe wrap (kind of like food safe tissue paper) and buy the decorative boxes from the dollar store for real cheap. I just stack up 3 of them and tie on a bow and deliver it to my DH's clients. I usually fill them with cinnamon glaze popcorn, carmel corn, chocolate dipped pretzels, spiced nuts, cookies, cake balls, oreo truffles, almond truffles, chocolate dipped oreos, chex mix, homemade candies. I just fill whatever I think that office would like the best ( I don't make all of this for each office) If it's an office with lots of employees I may take in decorated cupcakes or a decorated cake too.
Cookie, bread or cake mix in a jar would probably go over well too. I think I'm going to do that this year in a gift basket for my kids teachers and some of DH's clients to save time.
Forgot to add that the cocoa packs for 2 seem to go over really well and are really easy to assemble. I made about 50 of these last year and passed them out-.
When I do my spiced nuts I just put into a disposable piping bag, fill with nuts, tie it off with those lil' tiny rubber bands and tie a ribbon on it.
Sounds like my idea for this Christmas! Though, you're much more organized than me.
My plan for teachers, non-immediate family, neighbors, etc is to do towers with each box containing a different sweet treat. So far, my list is:
Cake balls (or sweet spots as we call them)
Choc covered pretzels - I do the large sourdough pretzels in different flavors and mini-twists
Choc covered oreos
Choc dipped Rice Krispie treats
Various cookies
Various candies
Guess I should start getting better organized...I'd LOVE to be done by the second week of December!!!
I am making up baskets for the tea/coffee/hot chocolate lovers in my family and for friend's/neighbors. They include a big assortment of diff. kinds/flavors of each. I make decorated cloth bags for the tea to go into, and I will bake individual tea cakes in a jar with recipe attached along with cute teacups, For coffee lovers, an assortment of flavored coffees /liquors and creamers in decorated tin's, baked coffee cakes in a jar, stirring spoons dipped in different flavors of chocolate etc, Big coffee mug's.
For hot chocolate lovers a assortment of hot premium cocoas, a lot I blend myself and put in tin's/bags etc. Spice cakes/chocolate cakes baked in a jar. Stirring spoons dipped in flavors of chocolate etc..big mug's.
The spoons are dipped in all kinds of melted chocolate from hazelnut to mocha cappachino to mint chocolate etc.. let set then wrap in clear bags and tied w/bow.
Then I add some more homemade goodies like scones/muffins and homemade jam/jelly. And any other goodies I can think of.
Some baskets will have a blend of all the diff, drinks etc..
Wow, all kinds of yummies for gift-giving! Thank you everyone for all of the great ideas!! Chocolate-dipped ANYthing!! I had forgotten about that! Hadn't thought of candies!
We were going through our gift closet and I have bought a lot of mugs throughout the year! There are also some baskets, a nice pie basket I bought on clearance post-holiday sales! Lots of little goodies to add to the baskets! I'm printing out this thread and putting it into my Christmas organizer!
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%