Happy New Year~

Cheers, everyone!

I started 2014 this morning similarly to how I said goodbye to 2013 last night, with a toast! … Of my favorite celebratory drink, Martinelli's Sparkling Apple Cider. It's soooo good~ And it looks like champagne, so it satisfies my need to feel like I'm celebrating while appeasing my dislike of most things alcoholic. And I'm still underage. That's a problem too.

In other news, I did promise yesterday that today would be about what I made for a Secret Santa gift exchange I did with my friends. Only four of us participated, so the Secret Santa was only secret until the day of the gift exchange. We didn't really bother keeping it a secret when we handed each other the gifts. But on to the gift!

So the price min/max was around $10. Basically, don't spend too much or too little. So with that kind of limit, I thought it would be much more worthwhile for the person receiving the gift if I made a gift basket with a bunch of homemade items!

And here is the basket right before I wrapped it up, with a little sheet of instructions (that says "Read Me") and everything labeled. Apologies for the bad lighting in all of these photos. I ended up doing this rather late at night since I wanted the food to be fresh. And also since I had to eat out with my family that night.

So included in the basket are:

• candied orange peels (homemade, recipe here)
• chocolate covered candied orange peels (homemade, same recipe except dipped in semi-sweet chocolate)
• a singular candy cane
• gingerbread cookies (homemade, from this post)
• chocolate cake (homemade, 1/6th the amount created by this Brown Eyed Baker recipe without the icing)
• Ghirardelli Chocolate Mocha Hot Cocoa Mix in a jar from Daiso (this one)
• cup from Daiso that I sharpied and baked with a custom design (yes, her name is Christy)

It was, packaging included, probably around $10.

Here's a closeup of the cup! I'm super proud of it… Lemme tell you, drawing with sharpie on a cup allows so little room for mistakes. Super ugh.

And here is the final wrapped present! I did cover up the stuff in the basket with wrapping paper so that even though the basket can be seen, the actual contents would be a surprise. I also added a Christmas Card and a tag to identify the recipient. I was so proud of this gift basket!

And that's all for today!

Tomorrow is my behind-the-wheel driving test, but I will try to make another post about the dessert I made for Christmas Eve dinner, even if I fail my test (again, *knocksonwood*) and am super depressed. Wish me luck! And I wish for all of you that 2014 will be the best year yet.

Until then,

Mishya