Sweeties Make Great Gifts, Hopefully

As I said in my previous post, next week I have two family events: my parents' thirtieth wedding anniversary and my sister's sixteenth birthday. I love family gatherings and events because it's a chance to get the family all in one place and have fun, but I dislike them due the the expectation of gift-giving.

The reason I dislike gift-giving isn't because I don't like spending money, but I don't like the concept of a contrived event where you are expected to give someone something they most likely don't want or won't use. Why can't you give people presents for no reason at any other time of the year? I also dislike Valentine's Day greatly for this reason: it's just forced and cold. Why can't I give my man-friend a nice present and a have a nice meal with him at any other time of year to celebrate our togetherness like, oh I dunno, our anniversary?

Because of this, I quite like giving people things they can eat as presents, because they're guaranteed to get use out of it or them; and people always like to eat sweeties! So, I'm guaranteed to please by giving someone a selection of sweeties for their birthday, or savouries if they don't like sweeties. I'm thinking maybe for my parents I'll make a selection of chocolate truffles and package them in a box, and for my sister a selection of bon-bons and package them in a jar. It's little effort for maximum result.

A side effect of this idea is that it has reignited my love of sweetie making and sugarcraft. Maybe you'll all be seeing tonnes more sweetie recipes and ideas after this! I may need to get one of these made...