My stepson just got his first Real Job. He’ll be moving the weekend after Xmas to another state (only a 3-hour drive away). I want to put together a little package for him for Xmas of his favorite non-perishables like jarred spaghetti sauce, boxed mac n cheese, barbecue sauce, etc. and wrap it up in a big box. I think it’s a pretty good gift, but hubby thinks not. He thinks if we’re gonna give him groceries, we should just gie them to him in a grocery bag.
You could just get him a gift card to a grocery store and save on the packing and moving of heavy and cumbersome groceries. But if you did get him the actual groceries, I wouldn’t wrap them. That’d be kind of tacky.
As a 24-year-old living the single-bedroom bachelor pad lifestyle, I say go for it. That gift would be more useful to me than everything else I’ll probably get this year put together. Food gifted to me is food I don’t have to buy; most everything else will be stuff I don’t want and have nowhere to put.
He’ll then have to haul those groceries 3 hours in a car. Will he need that room for other stuff? Unless he’s unable to afford groceries or it’s food he can’t buy there, I would do something else. Like give him a gift card for a grocery near his new home.
Depending on your budget a stack of gift cards is great.
So if your budget is 100.00 get 4 25’s instead of 2 50’s It is fun and great. They also make some great gift card holders now days. That would give you something nice to wrap. And if there is something particularly special like a local items or a specialty brand you could wrap that. Food is a great gift groceries in general are kinda different.
this.
Its a nice thought though it seems a bit more like something you’d give just for the occasion of his moving, not so much as a xmas gift. Regardless, H. Discord is right, a big bulky box of groceries is kind of inconvenient for a long car trip.
Hmmm… I hadn’t thought about any box inconvenience, because he’ll be moving boxes anyway. But, I guess a gift card makes more sense.
One of the best gifts I ever got was a cheap set of canisters that had been filled with rice, sugar, flour… there was even a spaghetti canister with spaghetti in it. At a time when I was struggling, those staples were handy to have.
So I say it’s a great idea.
I would have loved that when I was his age and in his situation. It’s especially nice because you chose all of his favorite things. As long as there is room in the box, go for it.
I don’t know how much of a cook your step son is, but small items that are financially and inherently valuable are spices.
No, really. A shoe-box full could easily set you back 50-100 dollars and be extremely useful to the burgeoning cook. Whenever I’ve moved, I’ve found that spices, staples, and cleaning supplies are the first things my money goes to.
If you are worried about size, you could cram in an awful lot of spaghetti, rice, and dried spices into one box. I also like the idea of getting a set of “staple containers” and filling them. Anything else (cleaning supplies, sauces) should be picked up at the new location.
Except for a roll of toilet paper. Add a roll of TP to the box. You should always show up to a new place to live expecting that there’s none. (Because, trust me, if you expect the reverse, there won’t be any…)
I say go for it, unless hauling it will be a problem
When I was in my first apartment, and still in college I always got big care packages like that for Christmas and I loved them!!! Seriously… I miss them now, 20 some years later.
My mom would fill a huge box, or a big hamper, or clothes basket with food, and household stuff she had collected all year. She love finding good deals and packing the stuff away.
I never had to buy toothpaste, TP, laundry detergent, or even tampons for like 5 years!!!
Maybe I am crazy, but I would rather have a gift like that than some expensive ugly sweater that I would never wear.
Of course we didn’t have gift cards then…so a gift card might be just as nice. Or a gift card, with a smaller version of the care package.
I even got stuff like that at my wedding shower(again I asked for practical stuff).
My sister in law got me a strainer, box of spaghetti, some good sauce, a bottle of wine, a small cutting board and a few other things and wrapped it all up in cellophane. It was a really cool present and I still use that cutting board and strainer almost daily.
Well, one way to kind of split the difference is to give him a small selection of spices and condiments along with a gift card. People moving out on their own often forget to buy things like garlic powder or mustard, and then they find themselves looking for it. (You know what he eats, so you know what he might want.)
Make the gift card the main thing, and the other stuff just…you know…accessories.
Then he’d have a nice package to open, it wouldn’t be too bulky, and he’d have the gift card so that he can buy larger/heavier things when he’s at his destination.
FWIW, on the year my sister got married, I gave her a giant Christmas package of “all the things you’re going to miss from your single, vet. school days”. Condoms, weed, the kind of sappy books she used to quote, the kind of music she likes but her husband doesn’t etc… She thought it was funny and perceptive of me.
Next year, they gave me a beer keg “cause you’re a drunk fuckwit, and we like that about you”. I enjoyed that, too 
But then, we’ve been ribbing each other for most of our lives. That’s how we know we love each other, that’s how affection is signified in my family. We only mock and tease the ones we care about, y’know ?
Shit, I’m off topic. Again.
Well, if I was moving away from France (or from Paris, for that matter), I would love to be able bring some of Grandma’s cooking with me. And real baguette. And saucisson. And real beer. And… you get the point. A taste of “Back Home”. But then, I don’t know if another State 3 hours away really is another world where they don’t do things like we do back home ?
Just a random pile of groceries might seem a bit lame.
Gift cards are one option, but that isn’t much fun. Grocery gift cards are really awesome to have, but not much fun to get. You don’t realize they are a good gift until a while afterwards when you end up using them. If I went this route, I’d include maybe one large grocery gift cards, a couple of smaller “fun” gift cards (maybe a book store and a clothing store), a couple of cheap scratcher lottery tickets (gives him something fun to do with his gift immediately) and something cool to wrap it up in.
You could also do the “starter kitchen” thing. Spices ARE really important. It can take a lot of time and money to get even the basics. And there are some basics that a new cook ought to have on hand but would never think to buy.
I would include a spice rack and spices. Go to your local Mexican and Indian markets to get these- the will a fraction of the cost. Some plastic containers filled with basic kitchen needs (including some fun stuff, like a tupperwear full of M&Ms) and a good basic cookbook. Skip the “college kid” cookbooks and get a good but basic serious one. I can’t recommend How to Cook Everything highly enough.
No gift from the heart is a stupid gift.
I think it’s a nice gift. Just tell him that it’s not important, and if he can’t fit it in, don’t worry about it, but have him open it just so he can see what it was. The items are non-perishable, so hopefully he’ll be back to visit some time soon to pick them up.
When I first moved away, the best gift from mom was pre-made meals. Seriously, the BEST gift, ever.
She got a cooler, made about three varieties of single-serving meals (e.g., chicken casserole, lasagne), and wrote the cooking instructions on 'em. She got to know I was eating something healthy other than mac & cheese, and I got good food. And a cooler, of course.
(she also gave me the recipies, but it’s only years later that I go to the trouble of pre-making frozen meals now. still a good idea, though.)
I’m probably around the same age as your stepson; I’m a semester away from graduating college. I think it’s a good idea. I’ve lived in an apartment for a couple of years now. The first things I bought were flour, sugar, and spices. While the flour and sugar were fairly cheap, the spices cumulatively cost a LOT. I don’t know if he cooks at all, but if so, I’d totally second the basket of spices (and make sure to add in some salt and pepper, too- that’s something I totally forgot to buy). Maybe get a few basic spices, and then add in a grocery gift card?
Wellllll…It’s not a stupid gift, per se, because it’s never stupid to give someone something they need and will use. But I don’t know that it’s really something that would be appreciated as a Christmas gift, and I would hesitate to wrap up groceries and stick them under the tree for just that reason.
Different people look at Christmas presents differently. Obviously. But what I’m getting at is that some people think practical stuff like groceries and waffle irons are GREAT gifts, and other people think Christmas is a time for fun stuff that you don’t actually need and thus wouldn’t necessarily buy for yourself. The second type of person typically doesn’t appreciate gifts like groceries and waffle irons, and for the first type of person to give such a gift to the second type of person is really just asking for hurt feelings.
Personally, I lurve me some practical gifts, but I also want fun stuff. (Of course, I cook and sew a lot, so I tend to view things like waffle irons as fun stuff, but let’s not complicate matters.) If something is purely practical and has no relation to my hobbies, like say a vacuum cleaner or tire pressure gauge, I don’t really want it to be the bulk of my present, unless for some reason I have specifically asked for this item. So a whole lot depends on how your son thinks about practical gifts, and how large a percentage of his gift budget the groceries would be.
If he’s been living in dorms or apartments in the student ghetto, and all his kitchen stuff is ratty, mismatched hand-me-downs, one thing that might be nice is to upgrade something fairly small to new stuff that matches. There’s something about opening a cabinet in your nice new home that you’re paying for with your nice new job, and seeing nice new glasses or silverware that match…I can’t really articulate it, but it’s very cozy and comforting.
Or some sort of equipment that he doesn’t have yet? Things like colanders, cutting boards, dish towels (for some reason, buying dish towels is right up there with cleaning the bathroom for things that just don’t seem to occur to guys of a certain age), canisters–those things don’t take up a lot of room, he would use them, and even fairly good quality ones don’t set you back that much so they still seem like incidental gifts rather than a big chunk of your present getting.
I like the gift idea, but the drive concerns me. Do you know if he has enough room for all of his stuff? If he’s already going to have a heavy load, I’d say go for the gift card.
Spices are a thoughtful gift if he is likely to cook, but would be wasted on someone who is going to survive on frozen dinners and such. For that person, I’d go for things he could add on - for example, condiments like good quality mustard or an interesting hot sauce. You could get a couple of little thoughtful things and then a gift card.