Happy Black Friday/National Food Coma Day! I hope all of you that are in the U.S. had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I should have known better than to promise to get a post up yesterday since I spent the day going from John's house watching the parade in the morning to my parents' house for family time and dinner. When I got home last night, it was straight to bed with me as I ate way too much good food!
Regardless, today I can finally start talking about Christmas without getting serious side eye, so I figured I'd give you guys some additional gift help with a cute little set that can be customized based upon the person you're buying for.
This is actually a gift that I am going to be giving to two people this Christmas. We have a fairly large administrative team of which I am a part of in my office and we all exchange gifts around the holidays. I'm very close with three of the people on the team, but the other two I don't know well enough to get them really personalized gifts. The past couple years I've just gotten bigger makeup sets from Sephora or Ulta and just divvied the contents between the two of them, but this year I decided to do something different.
I was about to check out at Target when I came across this beautiful and soft chunky knit scarf/cowl and I immediately became obsessed. I thought maybe I could make up a little Winter Survival Kit with some of my favorite cold weather foods and accessories.
So back into Target I went to find my absolute favorite hand lotion, the Jergens Ultra Healing Lotion, and one of my favorite lip balms, the Vaseline Lip Therapy. There are several different flavors of the Lip Therapy but I love the Cocoa Butter flavor. Both of these are absolute necessities in the cold weather for me!
I stopped at Walgreens on my way home and picked up this adorable Hot Chocolate tin and Mini Shortbread Stars. Hot chocolate is an obvious must in the winter, and these little tins come in four different flavors that help you customize your gift to the taste of the person who is getting it. Shortbread cookies are one of my top three flavors of cookies and they go perfect with any hot beverage. Plus, they're just so cute and festive!
And last, but definitely not least, is this DIY hot chocolate candle! I'm pretty candle obsessed, and when I saw how easy it was to make candles I had to give it a try. The mugs I got on clearance at Target, which worked out perfectly because when I saw these in the circular before Halloween I knew I wanted to use them to make candles. I think they were just under $2 a piece on clearance, but of course you can use whatever mugs or bowls you would like. You can even reuse empty candle jars if you have some laying around. If you still have a little wax left in one, just throw it in the freezer overnight and you'll be able to break up the wax the next morning with a knife. If you're having difficulty with getting the wicks out, just let the container soak in hot water until the glue is melted.
I will be doing a post about how to make these candles next week (edit: click here for the tutorial!), but if you want to get started this weekend you can do a search on YouTube and you can find all sorts of cute videos about different candles to make. I personally enjoy using the soy wax flakes as I find that the soy wax lasts longer and melts more evenly. Another thing to be aware of is that the wider the container, the more wicks you should use to ensure the even burn throughout the container. This is a great project for a day like today when you probably have a full belly and you're not too eager to do much movement! And, of course, if you aren't the DIY type, you can certainly just buy a candle to throw into the kit.
That's everything going in to my Winter Survival Kit. This is such an easy gift to throw together and won't cost you an arm and a leg, either. I think this little kit is even perfect for a first Christmas with a boyfriend/girlfriend when you don't really know their family. Most people like all of these things but you can certainly add or take away anything you think they won't like. You can even posh this up a little bit too if you want to give it to a good friend or family member by throwing in a nice blanket (maybe even electric), some cozy slippers and a movie to enjoy.
What would be in your winter survival kit? Let me know in the comments below!
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