Custom Holiday Cards and New Christmas Gift Traditions

I recently began cooking and baking as a hobby. Last year, I started a new tradition by baking Christmas goodies and making fudge and other chocolate treats as Christmas gifts. It was such a success that I would like to extend this tradition even further, and be able to send homemade goodies to my family and friends both near and far. That is why I am going to include my favorite recipes in the custom holiday cards that I send out this year.

I had never made gifts before, so I was nervous as to how the recipients of these gifts would react. Would they think I was just cheap and/or ran out of shopping time?! My fears were all unfounded, as it turned out that all the recipients were overjoyed, or at least seemed to be! Cooking or baking something special for someone can show how much you care for them, and taking time out during the already-busy holiday season to do so is an even more meaningful gesture.

I would like to send this sort of gift to more distant relatives and friends this year. I thought of perhaps baking the items myself and shipping them, but for the sake of freshness and quality control I thought better of it! Besides, sending the recipes themselves rather than finished products would allow me to tailor the “gift” more to the individual recipients. While I don’t really have time to make 50 different things for 50 different people, I can certainly pick 50 different recipes to share! Custom holiday cards are so convenient and afford me some extra time – time which I can use to select the special recipes to enclose in my cards. I’ll have the time to dig through my recipe box, or just to dig through my memory to figure out which recipe to send each person. Also, they then hopefully keep the card and the recipe and think of me whenever they prepare the dish.