Christmas Countdown – Budget friendly gift ideas! (Part 2 Edible Gifts)

Here are some ideas for yummy edible Christmas Gifts that are lightweight on the pocket book!

Gifts in a Jar

Image from Thrifty Fun.

You can prepare all kinds of things in a jar: cookie mix, cappuccino mix, cake mix, brownie mix, even soup mix. Best of all, all you need to do is a little bit of measuring; no cooking or baking involved, but make sure to include some directions with the jar. Here’s a site with a wide variety of jar recipes.

Rosemary Sea Salt or Spice mixes

This is a great gifts for food lovers and chefs. I made some rosemary sea salt last Christmas and it was a hit. It not only smelled great it’s amazing on roasted potatoes, chicken, or baked into focaccia bread. This is really simple. Take some coarse sea salt, and pulse it a few times in a food processor, then add in the rosemary, and pulse a few times more. You want there to be some crunchy texture left over. You can also substitute any of your favorite dried herbs for the rosemary.

Here’s a photo courtesy of Martha Stewart. She dresses up the salt in a glass jar, but cheaper way to package this is to pour it into a ziplock bag, fold over a piece of cardstock or scrapbook paper, and staple it to hide the ziplock threads.

A similar idea is to make your ‘secret seasoning mix’ of various herbs. Chicken rub, BBQ spices – you can find all kinds of ingredients online. One of my favorites is a simple Italian herb mix: oregano, parsley, rosemary, and freshly grated pepper.

Baked Gifts


That's a yummy looking photo I found on Flickr.

What are the holidays without yummy cookies and sweets? If you’re a baker you probably already do this. Every year growing up I’d look forward to our neighbors amazing gingerbread cookies! A lovely wrapped plate of your specialties is something no one can turn down, and decorating cookies is one thing kids love to help with. If you’re not a baker (I'm not!) biscotti is one cookie you can make in advance and it’s actually pretty easy, or… you can cheat… and buy some frozen dough, bake it, and LOOK like the best baker in the world.

Snowman Soup


A photo from Craft Sayings.

This is a nice little stocking stuffer for good girls and boys. Here's a recipe.

So those are a few edible ideas for you. I think I'll have one more post in this series... stay tuned for part 3 next week! In case you missed it, here's part 1.