Christmas Gift Jars and Baked Good Ideas

For those who have been visiting our blog long enough, you’d probably know that we usually get very crafty for Christmas gifts for loved ones.  But unfortunately, some years we were low on both time and money, to really craft as much as we would like to for gifts.  Still, we prefer to show our love to our loved ones at Christmas, with more homemade sort of gifts, if we can.  So we had the idea this year of sending some Christmas gift jars and baked goods.   It would be simple, inexpensive, yet appreciated we were sure.  Who doesn’t love food…right?

You should know, this post is not sharing the actual recipes we used. We are just sharing with you the idea of gift jars, and some presentation ideas, as inspiration, for your own gift giving.  Gift jar recipes are very easy to find though! You can just do a web search, or….check Pinterest for a wealth of jar recipe ideas!  Here though, we just want to show you what we came up with.

So some jars we made up with most of the ingredients to make Oatmeal Raisin Cookies.
All they needed to add was the butter, egg and vanilla!

Most of our gift recipients got a jar just like this, with the measured dry ingredients and directions.  But we knew my 2 bachelor brothers, and my Dad, were not going to be baking anything.  lol.   So…..we baked theirs for them, and filled up the jar with the cookies.  Cookies in a jar! So there is another idea for you!

We also gave some people the dry ingredients for this Curried Lentil Soup.  What a big project THIS turned out to be.  Because the recipe calls for red and yellow lentils.  After visiting 6 stores all over town, over the course of a week, we settled for red and green.  Maybe you know better where to get them? If not, don’t toss the idea all together, if you like the idea of soups. Again, search for recipes, and you’ll find more than you can shake a . . . . . . a . . . . . . spoon at. 🙂

Initially, we could only find tan, and made some soup ourselves to test the recipe.  Not being lentil experts, we thought only the color was different.  But ummm….not so much.   We HOPE the red & green works out alright for everyone.

We also made loaves of fresh homemade bread (not pictured) , and included those in most packages.

And homemade donuts!  : D

We got calls and messages from everyone, and they all seemed to really enjoy our tasty gifts! We think they probably ‘tasted the love‘.  But one did tell us the bread and donuts were kind of hardish, or heavy, when they arrived.  Now….the bread crust is.  You can knock on the loaf, but it’s soft on the inside.  It makes excellent toast, it’s great for sandwiches, and it goes well with soup, too!

But the donuts, being fried, we really weren’t sure HOW they would fair in shipping.   So I guess they arrived….a little dense.  Now, we take these things very seriously.  So, we asked ourselves what we may have learned from that outcome, and this is what we came up with:

Don’t share our donuts anymore!!
No, seriously, we’ll be working on our recipe, to make them a little lighter.  😀  For the rare occasion we make them again, because they aren’t the healthiest regular food to eat. But they are a real treat, and that’s in part what make the holidays so special.

Some pretty ribbon on your jars, with an attached tag that shares the recipe or directions, is a very warm and thoughtful gift, for anyone who eats!
Your tag can be hand-written as well. It actually makes it all the more handmade-appeal.

We hope these ideas make your Christmas gift-giving season fun, delicious, and budget-friendly.

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