That said – I would never give food that I have handled to someone I don’t know well. I’m giving these to my brother who is a ‘light’ cook with a newborn. He might just find the time time to brown some beef and dump the jar in a kettle. The brownies? Nope… he never has fresh eggs.

ps your son is so cute!!!

I didn’t mean to imply that was what Trent was doing.

Instead of getting a gift from someone I’m not that familiar with I’d rather they spent the time, money, and effort on people closer to them.

I’ve received a “cookie-in-a-jar” gift like this before, and enjoyed receiving it. First of all, I appreciated the thought behind the gift. I also enjoyed making the cookies, as they were a type of spice cookie I don’t normally make, and they used spices I don’t typically have on hand.

One of the things I enjoy about gifts is trying things that are a little different than what I might pick for myself. Gifts are things your friends and family think you might like. Sometimes they are right, sometimes they miss the mark. Thanks to gifts I’ve read books by authors I didn’t already know, tried foods that were new to me, and heard music by bands I wasn’t familiar with. If I inisted on only receiving gifts of things I already know and like, I’d miss out on some wonderful stuff. And I love homemade gifts, because I appreciate the extra time and thought that goes into them.

Really, should we just eliminate gift-giving altogether and pass around cash at holidays to ensure no one ever receives something not to their taste? Learning to graciously accept gifts is a skill we are supposed to learn as children!

One thing that blows my mind, however, is the quantity of gifts you give. I don’t even know that many people!

But perhaps, for those people close to you, a big basket with an assemblage of goodies would be a wonderful thing!

Oh, and for the plain brown wrappers on the soap, you can get paper bags next time you shop, and cut those into strips. Free!

At the end of this series, we’re going to have a lot of homemade gifts. So far, most of them are things we would use ourselves, so if we end up not giving all of them away, we’ll have plenty of canned jellies and soap and soup mixes for the winter and spring.

They are also great gifts to someone who has eaten your soup or brownies or homemade pickles (Trent’s recipe is the greatest!) or rosemary & lemon cracked olives or anchovy peppers (my specialties) and loved them and perhaps even asked for the recipes.

I really wouldn’t dare give them to “obligation gift” people in the office or whom I didn’t know very well UNLESS I had chatted with them at some time and knew that they were Food Mavens or Foodies or Adventurous Eaters. This would definitely fall flat with the Caviar-and-Champagne-at-the-Trendiest-New-Restaurant crowd.

Goodle “Single Serving Pie in a Jar”. I thought that was a cute idea. Yeah, it is just another sweet in a season of sweets, but it is small, and the only work required for the receiver is bringing the fork to their mouth. :)

But unless specifically tailored to the person, it dies read as a mass-obligation gift for sure. Or a nice gift from a child. I do not indulge in obligation gifts.

I would be much happier to get a small frozen homemade lazagna I could eat in January! Or frozen soup! Or just about anything that I only had to heat up, and not watch on the stove. 45 minutes is a long time.

It is a good idea for the right person if you find the right mix. But many, many people would not want it. There is nothing “wrong” with those people — I am one of them. Isn’t personal finance about avoiding spending extraneous time and money on things you don’t want and take up space? So why would you want your friends to waste their resources like that?

Then she makes prints and gives everyone a print.

That gift I love and I framed it and hung it up. She’s done this for a long time and people who have worked with her have a whole series of prints that she’s done.

I like it better as a gift because even though it’s a print it feels like a more personal gift.

I have friends. That I buy gifts for. Like I said, I like shopping for gifts and taking the time to get something the recipient would really like and want. If I don’t know a person well enough to know what they’d like as a gift then I don’t know them well enough to get them a gift.

Also I don’t expect people I barely know to give me things or feel obligated to give me things.

I’d much rather a person spend the time and money on their family or on charity or someone or something they truly care about and value.