Gift ideas...

The tea went really well this morning, and I thought I'd share the idea I had for giving gifts to the women in my group.

I don't know about you, but I find it hard to come up with good gift ideas. I don't like giving something generic just to give a gift. Sooo.... I came up with a way to give gifts to the women in my small group that took their personal preferences into account.

At the beginning of the year, I had all the ladies fill out an information sheet I made up. Included in the information sheet was a section called, "My Favorite Things." I asked them to list their favorite snacks/treats, colors, scents, flowers, hobbies, things collected, and decorating style and colors.

Then I went out and got them all their favorite snack, wrapped a bow and gift tag around it, and gave it to them, along with an ornament. They got things like a bag of Doritos, peanut M&Ms and a little bag of Cheezits, a king size Snickers, etc.

I was pretty proud of the way I handled the two tough snacks on my list. =) One of my ladies only listed ice cream and milkshakes as her favorite thing. Hmmm. So I went to the best milkshake place in town, Cookout, and asked for a cup, lid, and straw. I tied a ribbon around it and put milkshake money inside. The other tough snack was... carrot cake. Yup, carrot cake. As in, it has to be refrigerated because of cream cheese icing.

Well, I got the last individually wrapped slice of carrot cake at my local Food Lion last night. I tied a bow around the carton and put it in a little soft lunch cooler. Dani said she'd been craving carrot cake. I was glad.

I've thought about sending a questionnaire like the one I did for my MOPs group to my friends. Then I could save them in a Word file for later reference. It would make gift giving and randoms acts of kindness a lot easier.

Oh yeah, I got this idea from the Secret Pal questionnaire I filled out at one of the preschools where I worked. Each month, my secret pal would give me something anonymously. The best month was the one where I got off work and followed her instructions to the school fridge. There was a cold Dr. Pepper and a Milky Way in there with my name on it. That was a nice treat after a day of fussy toddlers!