The Story Of How Organic Gift Baskets Changed Our Christmas Forever

Article Topic: The story of how a fateful trip to the dentist lead one family to start giving each other organic gift baskets – and how they've never looked back.

Our family used to have a bit of a problem. We never thought we had a problem, but we did. You see, we used to be addicted to chocolate. Each Christmas, we would send our fellow family members gift baskets absolutely stuffed with chocolate. There were chocolates from all over the world – including Belgium and Switzerland. We all used to love getting together and trading chocolates from our baskets.

Last July, decades of chocaholic tradition came to an end when my sister Halle had an

“incident” at the dentist. She had taken all three of her children to the dentist and all three had come home with fillings in their teeth. Halle (who can be more than a little intense) went on a rampage through her house, throwing out every bit of chocolate she could find. At the next family barbecue she declared that that would be the end of the Christmas chocolate gift baskets.

We were all more than a little scared of Halle. We never sent another Christmas chocolate gift basket ever again. However, my little daughter Jenny suggested that we give each other organic gift baskets each Christmas from then on. We all smiled and marveled at how cute Jenny was. “No one wants to eat fruit at Christmas,” I thought. “Everyone wants to eat chocolate”.

However, we were scared that Halle would yell at us, and we were scared that our own kids would need fillings if this continued. So that December, we placed our first orders for organic gift baskets from an online wholefoods store.

That Christmas, we sent organic gift baskets to Halle's three teenagers. The gift baskets were filled with beautiful organic apples, pears, oranges and a selection of organic nuts. The organic gift baskets were packaged absolutely beautifully, and they were almost too good to open.

To Halle's husband Stan we sent an organic gift basket filled with organic cookies and muffins. These organic cookies and muffins used no refined sugar, or any type of sugar at all. Instead, they used either maple syrup or bee's honey to make them deliciously sweet. Of course, they weren't as sweet as chocolate, but Stan he didn't feel as full or tired after eating a few organic cookies, compared to how he usually felt after a few chocolate bars.

For Halle we got an organic food and gift basket. It contained some organic chocolate (which used maple syrup as a sweetener) as well as some organic pampering products. The organic pampering products included organic shampoo, conditioner, shower gel and body lotion.

Halle was delighted that we'd managed to accommodate her wishes. The family also liked the new organic gift baskets and agreed to never go back to the old days of the junk food binge-fests.