Bob's Gift Baskets Blog

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Gift giving is something we normally do from the heart. It is a gift expressing our love or care for someone that we know. Or it is a gift honoring and event or achievement in someone’s life. There are times when we may be invited to someone’s home or to an event where we do not know the individual that well or we may only know the parents of the honoree or perhaps only know a few of the people attending.

The same is true when hosting a party. When hosting a party or event, the host is often faced with a number of challenges. To RSVP or not. To have invitations printed or not. Who to invite. Where to hold it. To decorate or not. And numerous other tasks that come up.

When hosting a party or event, there are a couple of things you should never do. Number one on your list is to ask for a gift or a specific type of gift. This is incredibly rude. First unless worded properly you are telling your guest that they must bring a gift. Remember a gift is something given from the heart. It is not an obligation. Unless properly worded it is also pricing the gift you would like to receive.

There are ways to word your invitation so that it hints at the type of gift without directly asking for that type. One way is to suggest a theme for you gathering. In most cases the theme is obvious. If you are hosting a baby shower or a graduation then your guests should pick up on the type of gift from that. There are times however when you may wish to discreetly drop a hint. For example if you are hosting a wine tasting party, then word it in the invitation. You can even get specific if you like by stating perhaps that the feature will be French Wines. Your guests should pick up on the idea from that theme, but never ever ask for a specific type of gift. If your guest fails to pick up on your hint, it is their error not yours.

At Bob’s Gift Baskets we have a wide variety of gift giving ideas for just about every occasion and to fit every budget. If you are stuck with what to give, our site may give you a few ideas or offer you a solution.

Brought to you by Bob’s Gift Baskets

Gift giving is something we normally do from the heart. It is a gift expressing our love or care for someone that we know. Or it is a gift honoring and event or achievement in someone’s life. There are times when we may be invited to someone’s home or to an event where we do not know the individual that well or we may only know the parents of the honoree or perhaps only know a few of the people attending.

This is were gift giving can become difficult. What to give? What is appropriate? What is not? How much to spend? To bring a gift or not? These all become questions that make the whole idea of gift giving a chore.

One of the first rules you should consider is to not spend more then you can afford no matter what the occasion or event. Don’t go into debt to impress someone. You are not there to compete with others. If you cannot afford a gift and you feel one is expected, then decline the invitation unless you are close friends. In that case they will know your budget is limited.

Give with your heart and give what your wallet can afford. If price is not a problem, don’t go overboard either. This only serves to isolate you from those that could only afford moderate gifts.

If you cannot afford more then just a moderate gift, then attend and give with your heart. If offense is taken my your frugal gift, that is not your problem it is theirs. This does not mean you should be cheep either. A ten dollar or twenty dollar bill hastily stuffed in an envelope is not an appropriate gift to give at a wedding. If that is all you can afford at least take the time to purchase a nice gift card to go with it.

At Bob’s Gift Baskets we have a wide variety of gift giving ideas for just about every occasion and to fit every budget. If you are stuck with what to give, our site may give you a few ideas or offer you a solution.

Brought to you by Bob’s Gift Baskets. I thought today I’d take a break from the traditional gift basket tale and tell you of this story. I cannot imagine a much stranger gift then this family received. A gift from the allies to the French people struggling for their lives, its delivery method was also strange and frightening. Rest assured that your gourmet gift baskets from Bob’s Gift Baskets will not arrive in this fashion.

It is a dark and moonless night over German occupied France. The date is mid July 1943. A French family rushes outdoors glancing up into night sky trying to spot the aircraft that they can hear approaching from the direction of England. Expecting bombs to be dropped at any moment on the nearby German occupied town, instead there is a terrible crashing sound from one of the small rooms in their home. Rushing inside they find a gapping hole in their roof and their aging grandfather crushed by a large crate. Dropped by parachute, the chute had become tangled and instead of drifting gently to the earth it fell at a deadly speed, destroying part of a home and killing a French citizen.

Then contents of the crate were numerous and much needed items to those living in the occupied areas of France. There was toilet paper, writing tablets, food, candy, cigarettes, matches, coffee, tea, seeds and even condoms. Oddly enough, the toilet paper was reputed to have been imprinted with the face of Adolf Hitler. I’m sure that made him very happy. All much needed items in short supply in occupied France. Millions of these gifts from the air were dropped. The larger crates containing a multitude of needed items often dropped to small farms, while millions of smaller packages were dropped without parachute over vast areas.

Then of course there were the leaflets that were dropped by the millions. All a huge propaganda effort employed by the Allies, both as an attempt to demoralize the German forces, but also as an attempt to let the people in occupied areas know that the Allies were there and that they haven’t forgotten or given up on them. The strange list of items dropped is as long as it is strange. Counterfeit U.S. currency, useless ration coupons. Some of the gifts designed as needed gifts for the helpless French on the ground as then others as useless gifts dropped over enemy troops all with messages carefully designed to demoralize the enemy.

These gifts from the air have continued to this date. During the war with North Korea we started dropping transistor radios preset and fixed to a single station. To this day, they are still being smuggled into North Korea or dropped by helium filled balloons. During the war, depending on the location of the drops they would be tuned to a station to demoralized the North Korean troops or another drop location may be tuned to allow the non combatants on the ground a chance to hear how the war was going and give them hope. While millions of leaflets were dropped, the idea of the radio quickly kicked in. Millions of the people who gathered up the leaflets were illiterate and could not read the messages. Often the leaflets ended up being used as toilet paper.

Vietnam saw an increase in the number of radios air dropped as devices of propaganda. Satellite radios were being dropped or handed out in Afghanistan and Iraq. My own son who is a marine, was the first into Afghanistan right after 9-11, he was also the first in when we went into Iraq. He has now had several tours over there. I don’t know how much toilet paper was air dropped or handed out, but by his account, in most of the remote areas, they would not know what to do with a roll of toilet paper if it feel into their lap. Except in the larger towns were you would find the more affluent and educated, it is not even used.

Well we at Bob’s Gift Baskets  are not air dropping gift baskets into North Korea or any other countries in any attempt at propaganda of any kind, but we do drop ship directly from our factory to you or your recipient with the ease of just a few mouse clicks. We offer a wide selection, a range of prices to match your budget and a secure site that does not store or retain your credit card information

From Bob’s Gift Baskets I am sorry I have not updated my blog in the last couple of days. This has been because I have been interviewing all of my employees in an effort to find out how my website was hacked or if one of them where responsible. This was all because images were placed on my site that did not belong there and no I am not talking about the wrong photo of a gift basket. I am talking about perverted photos. I was not aware of this as I usually only view my website through the builder I use to update the site. Once the site is updated on the builder which may take a few hours depending on the complexity of any changes it is then published. Only at that point in time do you as viewers to the site see the changes.

I am the sole individual who updates the website. I am the only one who has the password to do so, yet someone hacked my website. They hacked the images on the actual published site itself as what I see on my builder was not hacked.

This was all reported to my by a woman who clicked on one of the images on my site expecting to see a larger picture of one of the gift baskets. What she saw instead was a nude photo of a man wearing nothing at all but a phony beard and a Santa hat. To that viewer and to any others that may have seen that image, I offer my sincere apologies. To the individual who hacked the site I can only offer a single finger raised in your defense. This may have been funny to you and a few of your perverted friends, but it was not funny to me or to this poor woman who reported it to me..

If there are any more sick individuals out there hoping to see a nude Santa, don’t bother going to my site to see any of these images. They are no longer there and now thanks to this individual that put them there I have to devote one employee to do nothing but monitor the site for further hackers. This poor woman now spends eight hours a day doing a what has to be a very boring job doing nothing but click through the photos on my web site.

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This is a personal experience by Bob. Please read it all.

Many years ago I became upset by what I had heard about some of the charities that I had always thought were doing something important in our community. I realized that my United Way contribution was going no where, but to fuel the so called not for profit industry. The claims that they made about me being able to say where my contributions went were false. While a percentage and it is a small one at that does go to help the needy, it does not justify the rest of the injustices. I am not picking on the United Way. They do help, but not to my satisfaction.

I have found a greater satisfaction in just giving to the needy themselves. You can find them everywhere. They are on the street corners holding signs. They are near your grocery store. They are every where if you only look. And like most of us, you try to avoid them because you don’t want to acknowledge their presence. Yes you may say that they are there because they have problems, be it drug or alcohol or any number of reasons you yourself attribute to them. In most cases you are right! But not in all.

I don’t carry money in my wallet. I carry it in my pocket. I never carry anything larger then a twenty. When I get approached by a homeless individual asking if I can spare a buck two, I no longer shy away as I have in the past. I dig deep and hand them the first bill I see. It could be a one, a five, ten or twenty, but it goes to them regardless. I have done this now for years. I know it goes to them. I can see it happen. It is not something that the United Way claims to do. I can see it. Oh, yes you may say that the individual may turn around and buy drugs or something else other then the food he or she claimed they needed, but again they may not.

Let me tell you now about my small contribution to a family and the reward I have received because of it. I won’t make up names, or use real names. They are not important anyway, but these people are real. This happened about a year ago before Thanksgiving. I was approached by a homeless man and asked if I could spare a couple bucks to help feed his family. Leery and cautious as I always am I reached in my pocket and pulled out a twenty. The look on the mans face was something where you have to do this or you will never see it. When I asked him about his family he led me back to an alley where they were huddled. I was so shocked by the condition of the kids that I almost collapsed in tears.

When I asked the mans wife if I could help them she was shocked by the offer to help and more then a little reluctant to accept. I thought later that perhaps she thought she was later going to be asked to perform some act that would not have been appropriate.

I ended up taking them to a nearby Target and buying them new clothes. Something they all were in dire need of. I then took them to a motel where I insisted that they all take a shower. Something they also were in dire need of. After that I took them all to an all you can eat restaurant, where to my great satisfaction they all ate well. I even slipped a couple zip lock bags to the mans wife so she could stuff a little in for later. I ended up giving the man my cell phone and a number to call for help. The total cost for this little gift giving was about four hundred dollars. This was small in comparison to what I had contributed to in the past to charitable institutions. I have often wondered why I gave this gift. Now I know. It was a gift that was rewarded a thousand fold just this year.

The mans wife called me this year and asked me over for Thanksgiving dinner. They now both have jobs and a place to stay. Their kids are well and back in school . They even paid me back for the gift I gave a year ago. There was never any drug abuse or anything other then just bad luck and the economy. That gift I gave a year ago quickly became one of the most rewarding things I have ever done. And I saw it in their faces!