Mom to the Screaming Masses: 10 Holiday Gift Ideas for Those Hard to Buy for People

Subtitle this post The "As Seen on Pinterest" post. All of these are on my Pinterest boards, all of them have been tried and all of them rock.

I recently made my own Lotion bars. I cannot even begin to tell you how amazing these things are. I use them on my hands a few times a day and on my feet before I put on my socks in the morning and, if I remember, at night before I go to bed. I bought the coconut oil at Wal mart - I bought the cheap stuff. I ordered beeswax and almond oil from Amazon - I saw them both in Whole Foods, but they were both more expensive. I made one batch without scent and didn't care for it, so I just remelted the discs in the top of the double boiler and added some essential oil. I will say that it took a LOT more essential oil than the original recipe called for - I used a combination of grapefruit, lime and tangerine. They smell awesome - but the lavender ones make me sneeze. A LOT.

These are going five in a mini mason jar for teacher gifts. I used the same silicone mold that the origianl poster did, and they set up in minutes. I left them to sit for a couple of hours just to be sure - but this was an uber quick thing to do.

Homemade bread mini loaves with cinnamon honey butter was my teacher gift last year, and I'm thinking of using it again for some of the teachers. It's easy to make, yummy to eat and it's not another "apple of my eye" teacher coffee mug.

I've also given a loaf of oatmeal bread or a container of homemade granola - especially nice if you give a cool cereal bowl.

Mary from Owlhaven has a stupendous recipe for candied almonds

Homemade caramel sauce and dark chocolate hot fudge, along with a container of ice cream.

Make a chocolate cake like this one

Or an orange cake

Or a lemon cake. EVERYONE loves cake.

I made Hot Cocoa Balls and these were probably the biggest hit, along with peppermint marshmallows

Groupon for restuarants - I've done this for my kids for Qdoba and the like, and for other places as gifts for my husband. There has been some discussion in my family as to if it's a cheap gift, but I'm thinking nope.

These are some of my ideas for this year. Any of them grab your fancy? Any successes that you'd like to share??

Comments

I think I'm going to have to try the lotion bars. They sound great! I make peppermint marshmallows every year and give them as gifts or donate to the church bake sale. They are always a hit, but I've never tried the hot cocoa balls, will have to look into those. And just as a side note, I would love it if I could click your links and they would pop up in a new screen so I didn't have to keep going back and forth. I'm lazy :)

Posted by: Jodie in MN | December 01, 2012 at 04:48 PM