A Gift Basket For Faraway Family Members

by Tracy Crowe

I know very well what it's like to have family who live far away. When I was growing up, my grandparents and aunts/uncles and cousins lived across the ocean. When I had my own kids, their grandparents and aunts/ uncles lived on the other side of the country. Now that my sister has 2 small children, the youngest of whom I've never met, this being far away has hit me again. How can we show far away family, especially when children are involved, that we want to be close and stay connected?

We could design a gift basket for family members who live far away, just to say we care. We would put into it several mementos that make the distance between us seem smaller.

If we have young children, we could send grandparents a digital picture frame. In case you're wondering what a digital picture frame is; it is a device about the size and shape of a picture frame that has a LCD screen. The screen displays multiple photos in a slide show format, and it connects to the Internet via the phone line to download new pictures and information to display. You use your computer to upload photos to a website and every day the frame uses the phone line to connect to the website and download any new photos. This is an ideal way to send digital photos of the family to grandparents who lack a computer and/or the skills to use one.

We could also include a DVD, or a video depending on the equipment we and they have, of some recent activity; perhaps our child scoring a goal at soccer or performing in a recital, or even just a family picnic or something like that. Photos are great, certainly better than nothing, but they just don't show you what the child is really like as well as video does. They don't give you as much of a feeling of being there as a movie does. We could also include a tape (either audiotape or videotape) of our child giving the recipient a special message.

Of course we could always send regular photos too. One idea to make a photo special is to cut out the shape of the children (the important part) and have it glued onto a plastic block so that it stands upright by itself. Another idea is to frame the photo in a magnetic frame that is suitable for the holiday so that it is easy to put on the fridge. I have one on my fridge right now that is a heart frame for Valentines Day. You can often get these at places like Target. We could include a picture the child has drawn or painted, or even a small thing the child has made himself if the child likes to do crafts.

Of course, most of these ideas are not just for children and grandparents, although I know that the time when you feel the farthest away from your family is when either you are a child away from grandparents, or you are away from a small child, especially a grandchild. These ideas can be applied to any faraway family members. When family members move away is when they most need to know that we're thinking of them. A gift basket would be a great way to reassure them of this.

Tracy Crowe loves to feel connected and closer to her family.

For information about gift baskets, visit http://theirowngiftbasket.com

For more News, Articles, Guides, Tips, Tricks and various Gift Giving Products information... visit our site at http://www.gift-giving-central.com.

Food Gifts with Flair - Gourmet Food Gift Ideas From the Holiday Gift Lady

by Melanie Farkas

Are you bored with spiced drink mix or layered soup in a jar? Let me inspire you with some new food gift ideas! I like making treats in the kitchen because they are cheap and don't take much time shopping for. My family likes them because they taste good and are consumable - no clutter! Here are some of the themes I use for inspiration in choosing the right recipe for each person:

Family History or Country of Origin - Introduce a person to a food that originated in the place your family is from. My husband's family is from Hungary so every year they make small crescent shaped nut filled cookies called Kieflies to give as gifts. It becomes a family event as we grind the nuts, roll out dough, and sprinkle the finished cookies with sugar. Then we pack them up in boxes to send off to relatives in California and deliver them personally to nearby family and friends.

Ethnic Dinner in a Basket - Gather a variety of ethnic food items into your own gourmet food gift basket. To our family who lives in upstate New York (but is originally from the Southwest), we send enchilada sauce and our family's favorite canned salsa. Add a bag of flour tortilla mix, Spanish rice mix, and some dried beans and you have the beginnings of a fiesta.

Hobbies - Does this person you know sit around playing Japanese video games all night? Give them Japanese treats. If they go participate in Civil War Reenactments, find a historical recipe book and cook them up some hard tack for the next camp out. If they like to scrapbook, put together a basket of healthy snack foods such as spiced almonds or pecans, dried fruit, pretzel mix and homemade or gourmet mustard for them to share with friends at the next photo cropping marathon.

Favorite Food - Think of a person's favorite food and then make several varieties of it. My friend Julie likes muffins so I could make her blueberry muffin mix, apple spice muffin mix, struesel muffin mix, and cranberry orange muffin mix. My neighbor Tony likes hot stuff so he might enjoy pickled peppers, hot salsa, and my mother-in-law's famous spicy asparagus spears.

Using these ideas for inspiration, you will have fun mixing up some food gifts for this holiday season and have your family and friends asking for more of your gourmet treats. Happy Holidays!

Melanie Farkas is the Holiday Gift Lady. She has gift ideas from all over the world at her website http://www.uniqueholidaygiftideas.com/

You can find many more food gift ideas on her Gourmet Holiday Gift Basket Ideas page at http://www.uniqueholidaygiftideas.com/gourmet-holiday-gift-basket.html/.

For more News, Articles, Guides, Tips, Tricks and various Gift Giving Products information... visit our site at http://www.gift-giving-central.com.