Healthy Holiday Gift Ideas

With visions of sugar plums (and other sugary, sweet, chocolatety) delights dancing in our heads, I thought I would share some of my ideas for some healthy alternatives for small gifts and stocking stuffers. So if you or someone you know is getting healthy or starting a new healthy eating plan for the new year, these gifts are sure to spread some holiday cheer.

For the office I like to get something small for a few of my coworkers. This year most of them are on diets also so the standard box of xmas chocolate wouldn’t be a good idea, and candles have been way over done. I decided to get them each a small gift bag filled with Pear Butter (all natural, only 30 calories, no sugar or additives), topped off with curly red paper filler, handful of whole walnuts (in the shell), a few Sunsweet Ones (individually wrapped delicious prunes), 3 tiny candy canes, and 6 fancy foiled wrapped chocolates. I found the Pear Butter right in the grocery store (it’s made by a local farm here in NJ), I love it and have been adding it to my oatmeal (it’s good on a whole grain english muffin too). They also have a Pumpkin Butter (also all natural) that I look forward to trying also. If you can’t find it locally, try Pear Jam (available from Amazon). The xmas gift bags and filler I got from a dollar store. Everything put together they make a festive and pretty gift for under just $10 each.

Stockings or gift baskets\or xmas bags with some glittering stuffing material (available from dollar stores) make very nice gifts and can be put together fairly easily and inexpensively. You can put together a sampling of whole grains; soup fixings (dried beans, etc.); herbal teas (green tea, yerba mate, white tea - all have lots of antioxidants); low-sodium sauces and condiments; a variety of mustards; variety of hot sauces - let your imagination run wild. For a more expensive gift toss in a gift card for a bookstore or clothing store (losing weight means new clothes).

Here are few other ideas to stir up your creativity:

The snack clip - a handy fun way to carry healthy snacks with, comes in 4 designs sure to please the kids or the kid-at-heart.

PlumSweets by Sunsweet - dark chocolate covered plums, lots of antioxidants with a touch of chocolate for that special holiday feeling - these are very tasty; I’ll be bringing in a couple bags to hand out at the office on the last day before I’m off holiday.

Pocket Pedometer with some nice comfy warm socks are good combo gift.

Roasted Garlic Express Electric Roaster - - I adore mine, and got one for my best friend last year for xmas and she loves it too. It only takes 20 minutes to make a lot of yummy roasted garlic that adds flavor to almost dish.

Chia Herb Garden - I got this a couple years ago. It was very easy to do and my daughter and I had a lot of fun planting the herbs together and cooking with them too.

Thermos Nissan 16-Ounce Stainless Steel Insulated Dual Purpose Food Jar - this termos is great for food or beverages so it is a great value. I have a thermos by Nissan and I love it, and have added this one to my xmas list too. Half the battle of eating healthy (traveling, at work, etc.) is having a healthy option available when you get hungry - having a nice thermos solves that problem.