Cheap Christmas Gift Baskets
Homemade Holiday Baskets Make Unique Frugal Gifts
The perfect Christmas gift basket combines an attractive, functional container with a selection of small presents that combine to make a unique inexpensive gift.
Functional or whimsical, for friends and family or business associates, a Christmas gift basket matches the festivity and fun of the holiday season. And, when you assemble your own gift baskets, you can create a more personalized present and get more freedom to add perishable items that might spoil in shipment from a mail-order company. Purchased gift baskets, however, are hard to beat for last-minute orders and for shipping to long-distance recipients.
Choose creative containers for your gift baskets and make your presentation truly memorable. Yard sales and thrift stores often overflow with wicker baskets. A plain cardboard box, covered in paper and adorned with ribbons, gives ample space to display the basket’s contents and reuses what may have ended up in the trash.
Here are some Christmas basket ideas, homemade and ready-made, for nearly everyone on your shopping list.
The Wine Lover Gift Basket
Buy a roomy ice bucket—it can double as a multi-bottle wine chiller at future parties—and add one bottle each of a red and white vintage. A package of crisp, hearty crackers, a cluster of grapes and a couple bricks of gourmet cheese rounds out the collection of goodies. Or order a $39.99 Fine Wine and Cheese gift basket online from wine.com that contains Geyser Peak Chardonnay, California Crisps Crackers, jack cheese spread, almonds, and Ghirardelli chocolate. Shipping varies with location. Also, wine.com cannot deliver wine to all states.
The Movie Fanatic Gift Basket
A popcorn bowl serves as the container for this functional and fun gift basket. Toss in a selection of microwave popcorn bags and some movie theater candy such as Junior Mints and Lemonheads. Tuck in a gift certificate to a local movie rental store and you have a great gift for a night of movie watching. Cherry Moon Farms sells a “Movie Night” gift basket for $39.99 with Act II microwave popcorn, Hot Tamales, Abba Zaba, Sugar Babies, Red Vines licorice, Mike & Ikes, Zours candies, and pistachios. Shipping for this basket is $9.99.
Coffee Addict Gift Basket
The java fanatic can never have enough coffee, so give him or her a selection of gourmet brews from the supermarket and a pretty or funny mug snuggled in a wicker basket. Complement the goodies with a bag of chocolate covered coffee beans. A ready-made “Special Sampler Box” from European coffee retailer Gevalia contains 12 assorted samples each of Gevalia ground regular brews, two 18-oz. white Gevalia signature cone mugs, Italian cookies and assorted milk and dark chocolates. Price: $29.95, plus $8.95 shipping.
Kid’s Gift Basket
Save the kid on your list the few excruciatingly long seconds it takes to unwrap a present and give him or her a basket full of games, toys and other goodies. A fabric storage cube holds everything and doubles as a room organizer after the holidays. Load it with card games and board games, stuffed animals, diecast cars or plastic jewelry (which the truly thrifty can amass throughout the year at yard sales and second-hand stores). Gift Sender Central sells a basket called “It’s Game Time” that contains Cracker Jacks, microwave popcorn, Snyders pretzels, Oreo cookies, assorted candies, Yahtzee, Uno, checkers, and a hand-held travel size activity game. Price for a medium basket, $39.99 with free UPS ground shipping.
