Gift Baskets from Before

There are references to gift baskets in many ancient cultures and stories. Gift baskets began with the pagan Anglo-Saxon holiday dedicated to Eostre, a fertility goddess. Part of those ancient traditions included baskets and eggs, so Easter became the first holiday where baskets are a major tradition. Now, gift baskets have expanded to include other holidays besides Easter—and they are always special and endearing because of their unique character and visual appeal.

One of the great things about gift baskets today is that they need not be tied to any particular holiday. They can be given for any special occasion and seem just as meaningful and genuine. Traditionally, baskets were used for gathering and storing food, so the most common type of gift basket contains food, candy, or wine. However, you will also find that baskets with other themes hold a certain appeal, such as perfumes and body washes or movies and popcorn. Gift baskets can send a strong message of love and affection because they proudly display their contents. The lack of mystery is more than made up for by the visual delight a well-arranged basket presents.

Gift Baskets Today

Part of the modern appeal of gift baskets is the way they are sold and delivered. Now that you can order baskets online and have them delivered anonymously, it adds a unique twist to gift giving. Instead of wondering what you might have given them, they will wonder who sent them the delicious food and great gifts. Also, gift baskets have a way of making food look appealing. When someone opens a boxed present to find food, they are usually underwhelmed to say the least! But the same person is often quite excited by the prospect of receiving food in a gift basket.

Many gift baskets are woven in a way that is impossible for a machine. The hand-crafted nature of wicker baskets gives them a special personal appeal that no other container can match. The basket becomes as valuable as the gifts it contains! It is not just another box to be thrown away, but a decoration to be displayed proudly.

When in doubt, a gift basket full of food is a great gift for any holiday or special day. It can even be a great get-well gift or symbol of appreciation. In fact, a gift basket can be the best and most appealing gift to give in many cases. Nothing says that you’re thinking about someone quite like a collection of gourmet foods in a hand-made basket.

Mayans, Aztecs, and … Chocolate?

The origins of chocolate actually go back all the way to the Olmecs, the first recorded civilization in South-Central America. However, it was the Mayan’s who made chocolate a dietary staple and cultural tradition. To them, chocolate was an energy drink that we would find bitter. In fact, they added chili pepper to it to make it a spicy drink. However, they also added vanilla to it, which gave it a sensual quality. That is where we’ll start our explorations.

While the Mayans used their chocolate drink primarily as a strength and mood enhancer, it became a key element in many of their cultural rituals. By the time the Mayans became the Aztecs, the chocolate drink had become so ingrained in their culture that the cocoa beans used to make it could be used as currency! Large portions of the Aztec population grew cocoa beans in their yards and used it up almost as fast as they could harvest it.

At some point, the chocolate drink became part of the Aztec marriage ceremony, where the sensual qualities of chocolate (now known to be due to its serotonin content) were like an aphrodisiac to Aztec newlyweds. From here, chocolate became a virility drink as well as an energy enhancer, and it was for both these reasons that Aztec emperors drank large quantities of it and gave it as gifts to visiting dignitaries.

Chocolate’s Debut in Europe

When Spanish conqueror Cortez arrived at Aztec Emperor Montezuma’s doorstep, he was given the chocolate drink as a “kingly gift” and told about its powers to enhance strength and virility. Cortez quickly bought into this and began shipping it back to Spain. As Europeans were not huge fans of the spicy and bitter taste of Aztec chocolate, they added cane sugar and cinnamon to it and removed the chili pepper. In this sweetened form, Spanish chocolate became a big hit almost instantly.

It could be argued that one of the biggest reasons Spain conquered the Aztec Empire was to fuel its newfound passion for chocolate! The Spanish quickly began shipping cocoa back to Europe in huge quantities. By the 17^th century, the Spanish chocolate drink was available to almost anyone who could afford it. By the end of the 18^th century, a solid form of chocolate was available. In the 19^th century, new ways of making chocolate made it affordable for the masses.

Throughout the centuries, chocolate never lost the connection to romantic love that the Aztecs had given it. Its relative expense (until the late 19^th century) made it a very meaningful gift between lovers. It was only a matter of time before it became associated with Valentine’s Day.

The History of Valentine’s Day

Like many Western holidays, Valentine’s Day began as a pagan Roman festival called Lupercalia, a festival dedicated to encouraging fertility and childbirth. The strong sexual element that inevitably accompanies such festivals made it a difficult tradition to halt, and the Catholic Church was only able to kill it by replacing it with a holiday for Saint Valentine.

Traditions seldom die, however, and romantic and erotic elements began to reappear in the St. Valentine’s Day traditions in the 14^th century. Soon, the tradition of writing “valentines” on February 14^th was well underway, and giving flowers soon became a tradition as well. However, chocolates would have to become affordable before they would be added to the list of Valentine’s Day traditions.

Chocolates and Valentine’s Day Today

In the late 19^th century, Victorian prudishness set the stage for chocolate’s addition to Valentine’s Day traditions. With its stigma as an erotic food, it was a great way to send a strong message in a very discreet, symbolic way. The adoption of chocolate as a Valentine’s Day tradition was not immediate due to the price of chocolate, so it did not become widespread until the early 20^th century. However, it was a great way to say, “I want you,” to your sweetheart in an age when it was extremely risqué to say so!

So by buying your sweetheart a batch of chocolate, you are participating in an exotic romantic tradition that is centuries old and carries a very real message. A box of chocolates says that you find someone desirable and hope they find you desirable in return. On top of that, the chocolates you give were once considered fit for kings—and, really, they still are. After all, who is more deserving of the title “king” or “queen” than your significant other?

The tradition must go back much farther than that. Sweets have been a recognized part of Christmas traditions for centuries throughout Central and Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and even Georgia (the nation). Nearly every country that is predominantly Christian includes sweets among its traditional Christmas foods, not only as desserts after the Christmas feast but as gifts. There are a variety of symbolic and practical reasons this could be. While we are not historians, we’ll tell you what we know.

Possible Symbolic Reasons for Giving Sweets

The Passover Feast of Judaism uses an extensive array of symbolic foods to tell the story of the Israelite exodus from Egypt. One of the foods is a sweet mixture of fruit and nuts called charoset, which symbolizes the mortar that Israelites used to bond bricks with while they were slaves in Egypt. It is the most dessert-like food in the meal. (The actual dessert is a piece of matzo or flatbread which is not really sweet.) Perhaps early converts of Judaism to Christianity wanted something sweet like the charoset as their dessert to remind them of the new faith they needed to build.

The Christian gospel was often called “sweet” in the metaphor-based preaching of early Church fathers. They may have chosen sweets (which were probably mainly fruit in those early days) as a symbol of partaking of the gospel. Giving sweets as gifts around Christmas would be symbolic of giving the fruit of the gospel to others. Equally likely, sweets were symbolic of the meals of the rich. Eating them at Christmastime would remind the common folk of the rewards they would receive for righteous living.

Possible Practical Reasons for Sweet Giving

It is widely known that many Christmas traditions come from pagan Winter Solstice traditions. Sweets were parts of the pagan feasts, and so they carried over into the Christmas feasts. In addition, most Christians lived in poverty not unlike the people of Africa today, where over half of their income was spent on food. Among the lower classes especially, food made the perfect gift because it was practical and highly desirable. It also allowed people to spend some of their money on something else (such as shoes for their children).

In addition, many possible gifts outside of food were beyond the reach of anyone in the lower classes. For example, aluminum was so rare that kings used it for their plates. A cast iron pot cost around the same as a car does today. Furniture wasn’t even for sale—you built it yourself. Toys were quite rare and a lot of children didn’t really understand the concept of a toy. This left clothing as one of the few gifts you could give besides food. While shoes and coats made great gifts for children who had none, sweets were the gifts children most coveted.

Why Give Sweets as Gifts Today

Because of our heritage, we still have a definite affinity for sweets as Christmas gifts. Traditions that have been cultivated for centuries tend to survive even the electronics gifts that are promoted today. They still have some of the same meaning: wanting to do something special for a friend or loved one. This makes them an ideal gift for neighbors and acquaintances. It also means they are still great gifts for family members. It is a rare family that can buy each member a high-quality Blu-Ray player or HDTV. On the other hand, many people would prefer a box of chocolates or a loaf of pumpkin bread to a cheap DVD player that lasts only three months or a toy that comes already broken.

In addition, we are much more spread out than ever before. In many families, siblings live hundreds of miles away from each other and their parents. It can be difficult to know what to get a friend or relative that is not a duplicate of what they already have. This is not a problem with food. Sending gift baskets will always be a welcome gift for anyone. And a gift basket that is made right will be just as special as an iPad, Wii, or any other high-profile gift. In fact, it may be even more special.