There are lots of things you can make that will give a lot of pleasure. These ideas might take a bit of your precious time but won’t cost much in dollars The time spent will be really appreciated by the person on the receiving end.

Some of the ideas here don’t actually take long to make either and you can involve other household members, including children and flatmates.

Truffles

See our chocolate truffles recipe.  This is a lot of fun when you have some ‘help’ with rolling the mixture into small balls.

If you’re feeling a bit stressed, then this is an ideal stress buster – take some deep breaths first and accept that it will be messy fun and there’ll be a bit of cleaning up afterwards.

After the mess comes the fun of wrapping these little beauties in festive style.

1. Use a festive small paper plate or cover a plain paper plate with a festive paper napkin.
2. Arrange the truffles on the plate, preferably in one layer.
3. Place the plate on a large sheet of coloured cellophane or festive wrapping paper.
4. Cut the paper ina large circle so that you can pull it up around the plate, draw it in and tie it with red, green gold or silver ribbons at the top.

1. Make or buy small cardboard boxes that will hold 6 -12 truffles.  if the boxes are plain white or brown you can decorate them yourself with stickers or paint.
2. This can be a job for the youngest members of the household, especially when the gift is for a grandparent , aunt or uncle.

Mini Christmas cakes

When you make or buy a large Christmas cake, this is an easy way to make  mini Christmas cakes that will be just right for people living alone.

Christmas cake

If you know someone who loves a good fruit cake but doesn’t have time to make one, try one of our Christmas cake recipes and give them a whole cake, iced and decorated or left plain depending on what you know of their preference.

This is also a useful gift to take with you when you are visiting others over the holiday period.

You can try our very easy Christmas cake or the gluten free fruit cake.

Think fiddly?  Not this way.

Make or buy a 20cm or 24 cm square Christmas cake and cut it into smaller squares.  A good size is  8-10 cms each.

Ice the small squares using almond paste and soft white icing (See http://www.askmumnow.com/in-the-kitchen/recipes/in-betweens/icing-for-fruit-or-christmas-cake/)

If the recipient doesn’t like icing, leave the cake plain.

Buy a decoration that will fit on the top.

Cover with cling wrap then wrap in red cellophane paper  or silver foil wrapping paper and tie with green, red or silver ribbons.