Last year I made gift baskets for friends and family and they were a huge hit! Here's what I used per basket and the estimated cost for a tight budget.

•Wired basket (DT $1.25) •Travel lotion (DT $1.25 •Chapstick (DT $1.25) •mini scented hand sanitizer (Walmart $2) •little candies (DT $1.25) •rock candy stick (DT $1.25) •homemade body scrub (DT Jar $1.50, scrub was pennies to make) • homemade cake mix cookies (~$1.50/box. Makes 8-10 cookies) •mini candle (DT $1.25) •fun socks (DT $1.25) •small unique gift for each basket (Usually $1-5)

I used tissue paper to wrap them up and made each one color themed!

It's that time of year where I start planning out my cooking and baking to-dos.

I want to gift my neighbors Christmas baskets full of homemade treats this year, but I don't want it to just be sweets. The way I see it is that everyone will be gifting sweets and I don't want a cookie burnout. I recently moved to a small-ish town so I love including exotic or fancy treats that my neighbors can't regularly get.

I'm known around the neighborhood for high quality, from-scratch cooking and baking. Not a chef but I've worked in fancy bakeries and kitchens on the line. Can and will go all out on these baskets!

All that said, what would you want in your Christmas basket?