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Holiday Gifts for Food Lovers

If you are looking for the perfect gift for the foodies in your life, a basket filled with gourmet food items and cooking materials is the perfect solution. A basket full of goodies enables you to combine items in a creative way that will appeal to food lovers with all sorts of tastes. Whether it is the experimental cooking they love or the indulgence of trying delicious new flavors, a basket provides an opportunity to share in your loved one’s passion for food.

The best way to create a food-themed basket is by narrowing the possibilities for items in the basket. Food baskets are a popular present and they can be tailored to suit any taste. You can choose standard items that anyone would enjoy or you can add more personal items like candy with personal messages or bottles of beer brewed for a special occasion. Nowadays it is possible to design custom labels that feature the name or image of your gift recipient.

Instead of just throwing together a basket filled with food, consider choosing a specific food theme that will help you create a basket that makes sense. For instance, if you are giving a loved on a food gift basket for Christmas, you could include holiday treats like fruit cake, candy canes, gingerbread, eggnog, ribbon candy and marzipan. These goodies are the perfect way to celebrate the season and provide satisfaction for a food lover’s sweet tooth.

Food-themed baskets can focus on a specific dining event, like a summer picnic outdoors. A basket filled with picnic foods can be romantic or fun, depending on the recipient. Fill the basket with sandwich items like fresh-baked breads, gourmet condiments like coarse ground mustard and homemade mayonnaise, luncheon meats, salads and fresh fruits. For your significant other, you can add a bottle of wine or sparkling cider. For a friend’s gift basket, choose fresh cider or micro-brewed beers.

Creating a basket with an ethnic food theme is also a great option for those who love sampling cuisines from around the world. An Italian-themed basket can include fresh pastas, jars of gourmet sauce, fresh mozzarella and parmesan cheeses, Italian spices and sticks of pepperoni. Food baskets with an Asian flair can be filled with ginger, wasabi paste, noodles, soy sauce and fortune cookies. You could even make an American food themed basket for those whose tastes are not that adventurous. Items like apple pie, gourmet macaroni and cheese, burgers and hot dogs are a great way to celebrate with familiar favorites.

A final option for a food-themed basket is to assemble a collection of comfort foods. You can fill the basket with hot cocoa mix, fluffy biscuits, pasta, bread, chili mix and chocolate. If the basket can be easily disassembled and the recipient will be home, you could even include a few containers of decadent ice cream and sundae toppings. While comfort foods may not be healthy to eat on a regular basis, for a special occasion, they combine to make the perfect gift basket.

 

We’re Back We Hope You Have Missed Us?

Our apologies to those of you who may have come to this blog looking for the profound and found the mundane….. We have just not been able to juggle the demands of life and business and still give this blog the attention that it deserves. Well we have made a number of adjustments and we hope we will be able to win you back.

On-line gifting is a unique business in that the purchaser is not the ultimate recipient of the purchase, so getting feedback is difficult. We would like to think that we are on track with you our clients, but….? So this is our attempt to reach out, to find out what is important to you and how we can better serve your gifting needs. Please visit Grenville Station anytime and please let us know what you think?

We have made a number of changes to our business that we hope you will find attractive.  First all of our gifts are now now shipped free of charge by FedEx Ground to most centres in Canada. Second we have become a part of the FTD Floral Network and you can find our floral offerings under the Grenville Station Flower Market tab on our home page or just click here

We also have the responsibility to remind you that it is now 32 days or 33 sleeps 11 hours and 48 minutes until the Santa arrives. To support your  Holiday Shopping needs we are pleased to advise you that we have launched our 2011 Holiday Catalogue, please have a look and let us know what you think?

 

Thanks

Anne & Caitlan

 

Gifts to the United States

Grenville Station is pleased to announce that through its affiliation with Elmbrook Lane of Chicago Illinois we can now offer a wide range of Gifts, Gift Baskets and Christmas Flowers to those of you who wish to share the joy of the holiday season with friends and relatives anywhere in the United States. Please feel free to follow the link on Grenville Station or contact Elmbrook Lane directly.

If you wish to send a gift elsewhere in the world please call us and we would be pleased to assist you. Just a reminder that delivery times to points outside North America may take additional time.

 

The holidays are coming…

Grenville Station is buzzing. New holiday stock is arriving daily and we’re running full tilt preparing for our favourite time of year. We have some really nice designs this year that we can’t wait to put online. Our Halloween gifts are almost ready and our Christmas baskets should be online in early October.  Although we don’t usually introduce new gifts after October 1st since we’re fully focused on Halloween/Christmas, this year we couldn’t help ourselves. Our new NHL Gifts arrived today. Well, the containers arrived today. We have all 6 Canadian teams (Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver). These gifts will be available just in time for the start of the hockey season. Join our Mail List and you’ll be notified as soon as they’re online!

Back to School at GrenvilleStation.com

This morning the kids were skipping off to school past our offices, the first day of the year. Many were excited while many disappointed. It was hot and sunny, like the middle of July. I think the weather wasn’t informed that it’s time to cool down and starting turning the leaves. The first day of school is the unofficial start of our holiday prepping. It actually begins in late June, but we never *feel* like it’s the start of holiday prep time until now.  Even though many tasks are accomplished beforehand, it’s hard to think of Halloween and Christmas until school is back in session.

And now the real fun begins…stay tuned!

New Designs/Cart Features Coming Soon…

The holiday season is fast upon us and our visit to the CGTA trade show was very fruitful. We saw great new products that will definitely be available in our Christmas 2008 designs. We also try to make the user experience as easy as possible. A couple of months ago we added delivery time estimates to our existing real-time rate quotes from FedEx. This allowed visitors to see not only the cost of shipping but the estimated transit times as well.

We’re hoping soon to implement a ShipEstimator feature to our cart so that you will be able to see the cost of shipping on the shopping cart rather than after you log into your account or create an account.  Other great ideas are planned…but those will have to wait for another day.

Remaining 5 Reasons…

[continued from previous post]

5. Increased business. After Father’s Day we experience a bit of a lull for the summer. We make use of this time by completing other necessary tasks, such as taking inventory and redesigning existing baskets. Once autumn arrives, we have several holidays that we need to prepare for. We also find that the amount of orders we receive increase, largely due to the travelling season ending. Our customers are less likely to be able to visit their distant loved ones for occasions such as birthdays. That’s where we come in!

4. Thanksgiving. Turkey Day is one of my favourite holidays! I enjoy the family dinners, my Grandmother’s pumpkin pie and, most importantly, the Statutory Holiday! This is the time when most of our orders are for our fall designs. The baskets are usually sent as a “Thank you” for someone who has hosted a Thanksgiving Dinner, or sent between loved ones who unfortunately are not able to be together during the holidays.

3. Halloween. Arguably, one of the most exciting days of the year for kids! But for us, Halloween is a season, not just one day of fun. Designing our Halloween baskets is certainly some of the most fun we have here. We are literally kids in a candy story when the sweets start pouring into our design studio! Among the goodies are gummy tarantulas, candy mice and bloody eyeball gumballs. When it comes to candy, the grosser the better!

2. Christmas. You can’t help but be jolly when preparing for the holidays! Once the stock arrives and the new designs are online, we get to work pre-making the holiday orders. We need to start as early as possible to keep up with the hundreds of orders that pour in almost immediately. The Christmas season easily occupies about 4 or 5 months of the year for all of us here at Grenville Station. It may still be beautiful autumn weather outside, but we will be like busy little elves in Santa’s workshop! Ho ho ho!

1. Chocolate! Need we say more? Due to the aforementioned summer temperatures, we have to stop using chocolate in our designs by (usually) late spring. Normally we use a fair amount of chocolate, so we have to remove quite a few designs from the website. Instead we use chips, crackers, coffee/tea, and other such products that will be unaffected by the heat. Sure they’re tasty treats… but nothing as exciting as chocolate!

And there you have it, our Top Ten Reasons We Love Autumn!

Top Ten Things to Look Forward to After Summer…

The summer season has officially begun! Sunny days, scorching temperatures and humid air. Ahh summertime in southern Ontario – it doesn’t last long, but it sure is beautiful! While everyone else is enjoying the weather, here at Grenville Station we’re doing what we do best: looking and planning ahead. Autumn is on the horizon and we have a lot of work to do before it gets here.

In anticipation of the season, we have put together a list of what we are looking forward to the most. There were a lot of excellent ideas and suggestions put forth from the staff and it was difficult to narrow it down to just ten!

10. New Fall Products. We are very excited when we receive our new fall stock. The products are usually new and exciting items that our Buyer has discovered. But they are always red, orange, yellow and brown! We then mix and match products and colours to make new designs. With such beautiful colours, the design possibilities are endless!

9. Fall Enhancements. In addition to our colourful new products, we also receive a wide array of fall enhancements, such as leaves, acorns and pine cones. The designers feel like kids again, when searching through the leaves for the perfect colours to use. These seasonal enhancements create a polished look in our new designs.

8. The First Snowfall. I can’t believe I just wrote that! There is something so peaceful and therapeutic about seeing the first flakes floating to the ground. It’s almost magical. As beautiful and peaceful as the first snowfall is, a week later I’m ready for spring! We all know what the first snowfall leads to right? Well we’ll get to that later…

7. Back To School. You know all you parents out there have been waiting for this one! After a long and frustrating summer, doing everything you can to keep the kids occupied and NOT fighting, it’s time for you to grow back all the hair you’ve pulled out! After dropping off the kids on the first day, you can see smiles form and happy dances begin! The Moms and Dads here in the office are certainly much happier and more relaxed.

6. Trade Shows. For the most part, this is where our new seasonal products are discovered. Our Buyer’s attend a handful of the largest shows in our area, on the hunt for tasty new treats with appealing packaging. Packaging is one of the top reasons we will carry a certain product. Since each product can actually be seen in the photograph when a customer is purchasing a gift basket, if the products don’t look appealing then neither do we. At the Trade Shows, there are literally hundreds of booths to visit, so it is a time consuming project. Their hard work pays off when they see how excited the design team gets over the new stock and the wonderful new designs that are quickly created!

The top 5…well, you’ll just have to wait until next time!

Summer fun @ GrenvilleStation.com

Fathers’ Day has come and gone and the slow summer period is upon us.  Slow is a relative term.  Orders are still coming in for non-holiday events (birthday, new baby, anniversary, wedding, etc.) and our team has already started pre-planning the 2008 Christmas season.  You learn from past years what works and what doesn’t.  You decide on marketing strategies and inventory levels.  The fall CGTA trade show (in August) determines some major inventory concerns…it’s the circle of gift basket life!