Last year I decided to start baking gifts for my family and friends for the holidays.
I have a lot of family and acquaintances, but I give gifts only to parents and other family and friends. It's only a handful of people, so not necessarily a huge project.
When I'm giving a gift to that special family or friend, and an onlooker sincerely asks me, "Where's my gift?" My initial thought is, "Where's my gift from YOU?". Don't expect a gift from me if you haven't given me one. That's incredibly annoying.
Anywho, I decided to do a delicatessen that I've never made before: old fashioned donuts! And to make the gift set complete, I included a sweet and sour favorite, lemon poppyseed muffins.
I of course made everything from scratch (go figure? Lol) and reassembled simple gift boxes I found at Walmart into pastry boxes. I won't tell you how much I spent total, but I think the overall finished product is more valuable than any store-bought gift I could have found!
The donuts are simple old fashioned cut-out donuts from two circular cookie cutters, fried in Olive oil. I would have rather fried them in canola oil, but it was Christmas Eve, and that's all I had on hand.
I started out by buying a few basic items like Christmas-themed craft paper (I pretty much had all the baking ingredients on-hand), and let my imagination run free as I started the baking process. Based on the responses, I think my family and friends enjoyed them :)