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rainbowgardener
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Christmas gift ideas

Most years a lot of my Christmas gifts are products from my garden. This year I left my garden behind, so not so much.

So here's some of what I am making:

Knitted placemats (heavy cotton yarn, knitted double, so they have weight and firmness)

Acorn necklaces, made with the tiny acorns our black oak tree drops, painted with metallic gold paint

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tea cup candles, scented with my own essential oils

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these are easy and thrift stores have lots of pretty tea cups.

Gift baskets, with some combination of peach syrup, raspberry syrup, biscotti, blackberry sage jam, strawberry anise hyssop jam, herbal tea blends, home made soaps also scented with my oils. All the herbs are from my Cincinnati garden.


What are other people making?

imafan26
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I barely have time to shop but I am just doing practical things like kitchen towels, hand soap and honey we harvested from the beehive at the garden. I used to bake but not so much anymore. My family want me to make a different dessert jello cream cheese squares instead of pumpkin rolls.
I have made some herb bowls in the past as gifts but it is actually getting hard to find the containers. It seems like most of the pots they sell these days don't have any drain holes.

gumbo2176
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I'll probably bake about 20 dozen cookies to hand out to folks. There's the postman, garbage men, some neighbors, people my wife works with and friends and family. My wife makes a ton of those milk chocolate candies with the various theme molds she has on hand and does the same.

This year I have a brother-in-law and his son, my nephew, that bought new houses about 4 months apart. I'm making a porch swing for my nephew and his wife and a double Adorondack Chair with built in drink holders for the in laws to sit around their pool at their new house, more as a housewarming gift than Christmas gift-----it just happens to fall out this way.


As for the adults in the family, we generally don't get into gift giving by mutual agreement. At this point in our lives, we pretty much have all we need.

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sweetiepie
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I quilt place mats or table runners with left over material I use for quilts. I also collect lots of old clothes and jeans and make denim quilts for the kids when they leave home. The front is usually pieces of there old shirts and the backing then is there jeans. Kind of a keepsake thing.

I also knit wash cloths for gifts. I am giving some of my grape jam from my grapes this year and homemade jerky away as gifts also. I don't exactly give my sisters and brothers gifts but put dried minced onion, many different spices that I have dried from the garden, like thyme, oregano, parsley, sage, chives, red pepper, green pepper, paprika, etc. in jelly jars into a large basket. I place some rolled up knitted wash clothes in it and bring it for Christmas and family can pick what they want out of it.

I have been baking most of the month and freezing about 6 of each item like cookies or candies to give to my son when he returns to college. Sort of a holiday goody box that keeps on giving. That way he doesn't miss out on the baking that the other kids eat up before he gets home for vacation.

pepperhead212
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Cookies are the gift many await from me! I don't bake nearly as many as I used to, as there aren't as many around to give them to, but I still do a good number. A friend and his daughter came over to help (something they've been doing for years!), and yesterday we baked all 1700 (which took me 4 days to prepare the dough for!) in just over 3 hours. Ahhhh, the wonders of a commercial oven! :)

Here is what I made the most of - the habanero gingersnaps, which are always my most popular. The 2x3 ft. cooling tray is only about 2/3 of them:
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The 4 recipes only filled this tin about 1/3 of the way, and I used to fill it to the top!
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Here are the CC Barleymeal Snickerdoodles, next to the pine nut cookies (Mom's favorite).
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And here are those Amaranth cookies:
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And here's a perennial favorite, the Tennessee Icebox cookie. I use this recipe with many nuts, and is what I used with the amaranth.

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Sesame cookies, which I add Kadoya sesame oil to, to intensify the flavor:
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Barley and Oatmeal Icebox cookies:
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Wienerstube - black pepper chocolate cookies. Same recipe used for the orange, minus the spices.
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Chocolate Orange:
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There are a few types I still haven't baked, but there are some that aren't getting done this season.

gumbo2176
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Pepperhead, your house must smell like heaven to a kid this time of year. And there's a kid in all of us just waiting to get out. Man, that's a lot of cookies and your friends and family are lucky. I'd love to try the habanero gingersnaps since I grow lots of habs to use in my pepper jellies and home made hot sauces.

Great pic by the way. Now I'm sufficiently hungry for something sweet.

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rainbowgardener
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Great responses everyone!! Pepperhead, what wonder full cookies! I am going to have to try some of those. I did forget to mention the sweet and hot pepper jelly that is one of the gift basket choices.

I was thinking about looking for some cheap simple trays at thrift stores and decoupaging them with leaves, but I think that will wait for another time.

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applestar
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You are all SO inspiring! Definitely have to see what I can accomplish too. :-()

Nothing so organized, but I usually do also give dried herbs and herbal teas, and preserves, and share any fresh Indoor Garden fruits and herbs that are ready to harvest. It looks like I will be giving out some fresh hot peppers this year. :D

pepperhead212
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Hmmmm...never thought about giving hot peppers for gifts. Not sure I would have enough to do that. :D

Susan W
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Oh my! Making all these wonderful things for gifts. I'm on a different track this time of year. Trying to make inventory to sell so others give my handcrafted items! Our farmers market is 12 months. Nov-Dec I switch gears to knit scarves and more of the cotton washcloths plus candles. And a few fresh herbs and herb plants, including bay tree-lets.

For the scarves, mostly the infinity scarves knit up in fancy boucle acrylic yarn, (no overlap with my 18th c side!). I've been messing with candles, sticking with straight beeswax. I've had the votives,this season adding ornaments, poured candles in both metal and silicone molds. I'm on a quick learning curve with these, and looking forward to adding more molds.

Susan - what was I thinking?!

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rainbowgardener
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Wonderful crafts, Susan! I'd love to see some pictures of your candles!

Asica
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You guys rock. I have to say I just love those candles in a tea cups. My first thought was: you can make your own essential oils, must google that.
I am not comparison to all of you. But I did made some of hypertufa pots and added succulents to them.
I love the idea of dry herbs, I am so doing this next year.

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applestar
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Oh! Oh! @Asiaca -- please start a thread about hypertufa. I wanted to try that this year but didn't get around to it, and it is one of the top things to do for next year. :-()

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rainbowgardener
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I do make my own "essential oils," which actually are not true essential oil, but hydrosols. That means the oil is still mixed in with some water, not purified.

My little stove top distillers, that is the best I can do. But I am OK with that. I can't sell them as essential oils. But to use to scent the soaps and candles I make, the hydrosols are quite fragrant and work well. If the oil were purified out of them, a quart of plant material would probably yield a few drops of oil.

See this thread for info about distilling essential oils using an espresso maker: https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/vi ... er#p369260

I'm planning to try this next year, since I'm not perfectly satisfied with either of my home distillers.

gumbo2176
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Helps to know where your talents lie in order to give you ideas. I like to bake goods for family and friends as they all seem to love my homemade chocolate chip/pecan cookies. I also do woodworking and have made some nice presents like spice racks, wine racks, porch swings, Adirondack chairs, etc.

My wife has tons of candy molds that she uses to make Christmas themed chocolates and she hands them out at her office and her nieces and nephews---------and now their kids as well as they are all having families now.

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rainbowgardener
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This year's gift baskets have a selection from: apple jelly, apple butter (home made from our own apples), sweet and hot pepper jelly, rhubarb jelly, sage blackberry jam, about ten different herbal tea blends (I have posted recipes here somewhere), three varieties of home made soaps (lavender/ eucalyptus, rose/ floral, teakwood/eucalyptus) in fancy shapes, lavender and/or orange almond biscotti, christmas cookies for the ones that are not getting mailed. Possibly some will have a bottle of our local organic wine from Georgia Winery. Some year I would love it to be home made wine, but not there yet. For decoration a sprinkling of store bought gold wrapped chocolates. All arranged nicely in baskets and wrapped in saran and ribboned....

No pictures, because not done yet. Today I did the soaps. Tomorrow I will do the biscotti and cookies and arrange things and hopefully get the ones that are going to Calif and New Mexico in the mail.

Incidentally, if you check the thrift stores, I have always found nice baskets, priced anywhere from fifty cents to $5. Considering that similar things new in stores are $20 and up, its a great deal.

I also did some knit projects -- small car seat/ stroller blankets for the twins and an infinity scarf for their mom. Memo to self: If you do home made Christmas gifts, start before Thanksgiving!!

Just as a bonus, here's a picture of one of my twin granddaughters, now 15 months old
Simone Christmas cropped.JPG
I love that picture so much. I'm thinking of printing it and framing it. Maybe two, one for me and one for the parents....

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applestar
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ADORABLE!! Definitely a frame-worthy photo. Thanks for sharing - I want to reach in and give her a big hug! :D

...but now you need another one — equally good photo of the other twin, no?

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TomatoNut95
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I always panic near Christmas 'cause I never know what to get my family. Gift cards are getting dangerous to get, so those are out. Since crocheting is a hobby of mine, I have given a home-made afghan and some scarves in the past. Sometimes it's best to give money, so the person can go buy their own gift. :>



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