Don't despair, because there are many fast, inexpensive gifts you can make for friends, family, work colleagues and nieghbours. There are many articles about this very subject floating around at the moment and I have certainly written my share of them before too, so I will keep it simple and try to pass on some last minute ideas to keep the panic away.
A gift I love for friends and colleagues that I will not see Christmas day, is the "friendly teabag". This involves buying a packet of those individually wrapped teabags from the supermarket (please try and get those made in your own country if possible!). Take a teabag and either glue or tape the back of the bag it is wrapped in, to a small sheet of coloured card or paper. On the card goes the poem:
ON CHRISTMAS DAY AT HALF PAST THREE BREW YOURSELF A CUP OF TEA I'LL THINK OF YOU, YOU'LL THINK OF ME SITTING BESIDE THE CHRISTMAS TREE
If you have the required programs on your computer, you can type these up in a nice font with a pretty border, and print them off - but remember to leave room for the teabag. Pop the card in a cliplock bag or similar (to fit, you may need to get the bags first and cut the card to size). A really pretty touch is to attach a small sprig of holly or evergreen to the top corner of the bag.
The next thing I love to do is Chocolate Spoons. These are a bag of plastic spoons (around 50 cents from the supermarket for a big bundle of them). Melt some cooking chocolate and dip the spoons in one at a time, just covering the "spoon" part with chocolate and holding it over the saucepan or bowl until it stops dripping. Lay them on foil to harden properly. When done, wrap in clear cellaphane and tie the top with some curling ribbon, with a tag attached and instructions to stir through hot coffee until the chocolate has melted. Some extra variations would be to add a favorite liqueur to the chocolate when melted (Irish whiskey, Baileys, Tia Maria etc), or some flavoured essence such as mint or almond. These are lovely grouped in a small basket (include a few different flavours) with perhaps some nice coffee, or in a mug wrapped in cellaphane.
