I don’t know about you, but giving gifts around the holidays is one of my favorite things in the entire world. I love packing up a shoebox to be sent to some underprivileged child in a foreign country. It’s so fun trying to find miniature things that can offer on-going fun or functionality. I love buying Angel Tree gifts that will be given to little ones who have an incarcerated parent. And, of course, I love getting gifts for my friends and family! Technically, I shop for Christmas all year long, keeping my eye out for awesome deals. A lot of times, though, I don’t even buy the gifts that I hand out personally… I make them!
I get into this kick where I have a great idea and then produce that idea in mass quantities for everyone I know. Like one year I made blueberry syrup from blueberries that we handpicked. One year I made everyone this craft out of picture frames. The last couple of years I’ve been experimenting with giving homemade candy, which has had the very best results. So this year I made candy boxes. You know those candy boxes you can buy around Valentine’s Day, that are shaped like a heart and full of truffles? So that’s the basic idea, except I personalize the actual boxes and fill them with actual home-made candy.
So then the question that begs to be asked is, “How do I ship these during the holiday season?” Here is what I found out:
- Ship early in the week so that the gift/candy isn’t sitting around over the weekend
- Choose the right sized box. The right sized box needs to have a couple inches available on all sides of the item, because the item is going to be wrapped in something like bubble wrap.
- In the case of my candy boxes, I wrapped them securely in bubble wrap and then wrapped the bubble wrap with packaging tape to make sure that there wasn’t going to be any breaking open or serious shifting in the box. I would not recommend packing peanuts or any other kind of “moveable” cushion, or else your gift will move around in transit and show up in a state of disarray.
- Make sure that there is no empty space at the top of the box. This you can fill with newspaper or more bubble wrap, so that the box doesn’t cave in when it’s being handled.
- Look around to find out who has the best rate for parcel post with the fastest shipping time. This is up for grabs during the holiday season!