Things to Put in a new Home Gift Basket
It is daunting to think of a gift for friends or family, who are moving house. A gift basket is the perfect solution. You can make your basket as expensive or as economic as you wish. When obtaining gifts to fill your gift basket, think about the recipients, their circumstances, and their lives and choose your gifts accordingly. Think about what your intended recipients may need in the first few days and weeks in their new home and whether it is a first home, another home, or that they are moving from an apartment to a house.
When people stand in their new home, surrounded by all their possessions packed in boxes, and removal men or kind helpers asking where this or that should go, feelings overwhelm them. Everything that makes a house a home are packed, everyone is asking questions at once it can leave one feeling a bit lost and rootless. A thoughtfully assembled gift basket can help these feelings and help that new home to feel less strange and a little more welcoming.
A thoughtful gift basket, if you are visiting on moving day itself, would contain a small camping stove, gas to fuel it, matches, coffee, tea, instant hot chocolate, long life milk or cream, a small pack, or individual sachets of sugar, mugs, some teaspoons and a tray. Services such as electricity and gas do not usually come on for a couple of days when you first move into a new home, at least if you have the means to make a warm drink, life seems a little better. You could also add some home baked or bought cookies to your basket.
Food is always a welcome gift, but never more so when someone has just moved. A hot casserole, or stew, in a large necked food flask, along with bread and butter, some disposable knives, forks, spoons, disposable napkins and a dessert could make a very welcome gift basket. There is nothing like a hot meal to raise everyone’s spirits.
If the person, or family, is moving to a new area, you could make a basket on that theme. Think about what you would want to know about a new area. A general map of the area, a street map, tourist leaflets and information, information on local shops, suppliers, pharmacies, doctors, and do it yourself stores, plus bus and train timetables would help someone settle in to their new area. You could add some money off or gift vouchers to local attractions to the above.
Perhaps the intended recipients of the gift basket are moving from an apartment to a house and have a garden for the first time. You could make a gardening basket. Take a trug or plant pot and fill it with flower and vegetable seed packets, gardening gloves, a small trowel and fork, some plant pots and anything else you think might be useful.
Moving into a first home is very exciting. You buy or kind people give you gifts of all sorts for your new home. However, most people forget the little things that you need in a first home, and a basket containing these can be most welcome. Cleaning cloths, dusters, tea cloths, cleaning materials, a scrubbing brush, dish mop, a pair of rubber gloves could all go into a plastic washing up bowl and be a very welcome gift for a new home. A first kitchen would benefit from a fish slice, ladle, serving spoons, palette knife and other kitchen utensils. You could put them all into a suitable open topped canister to stand on the worktop alongside the stove ready for immediate use.
When moving into a new home, people usually like to decorate to their own tastes. Repainting or re-papering the walls of a new home is one way to personalize it. A suitable gift basket could contain paint brushes, brush cleaner, wallpaper paste, paint charts, rags (for wiping hands and brushes on), masking tape, and other things to make the home decorator’s life a little easier.
There are always practical things that you need when you first move into a house and these are often in the box or tea chest that is behind everything else or is the most difficult to find. A gift basket containing light bulbs, curtain hooks, picture hooks, tacks, nails, screws, the plastic cups that protect flooring from furniture feet and other necessary things might make a gift for which the recipients will bless you.
On a lighter note, a basket containing a bottle of champagne or wine, a corkscrew or bottle opener, glasses and some snacks or nibbles might be just the thing with which to toast the new home and to relax after the busy moving day.
When you are working hard to settle into a new home and make it your own, a relaxing bath or shower at the end of the day can ease tired muscles and help you to relax and unwind. A basket of bath or shower products could help. Bath or shower gel that contains a muscle relaxant, herbs or essential oils, a fluffy towel, wash cloth, and hand cream for dry or hard worked hands could ensure a good night’s sleep.
You could put many things into a new home gift basket. Think about the intended recipient/s, their circumstances, whether they are moving into a first home, from an apartment into a house, and about what might ease those first days, or weeks, in their new home. Thinking creatively will help you to assemble the most appropriate and welcome gift for your friend, or relative, and help them to settle quickly and happily into their new home.
