Mix Food, the Web and a Charge Card for a Giving Recipe

I am not a shopping enthusiast! Except around the winter holidays, I hate the parking problems, I don't enjoy browsing aisle after aisle looking for something that would be just perfect for Grandma or Uncle Arthur. I certainly do not like waiting in line with frustrated people killing time for the lone employee to handle yet another exchange. During the holidays, I enjoy meandering through stores simply people watching, without being burdened with packages. The experience for whatever reason gets me into a holiday emotional state, but I do my actual shopping and buying almost entirely online. That's a practice I developed in the very early years of the Web.

Online shopping didn't save my life all by itself. Just because I started using the Web before any of my friends, I still had to make the decisions. And then, around five years ago, or so, I discovered food.

That wasn't very honestly phrased, because I discovered food when I was still an infant. But I didn't discover food as a gift idea until recently. You see, at that time I received a gift basket full of hardly edible sausages, processed cheese spreads (mostly chemicals I think) and crackers that were about as crunchy as a rock. However, the poor quality of what passed as food in that gift turned out to be my inspiration. "What," I thought, "If I had received genuinely good food?" How different that would have been, and how much I would have enjoyed it.

Since that moment of momentous insight on my part, I have been a dedicated sampler of a variety of food gifts that I buy for myself on the Internet. I have found that the online gift food stores handle everything from shipping to the accompanying gift cards. Yes, I actually send myself a gift card to test the store's dedication to detail. The Internet boutiques are now the sources for all of my gifts, except those gifts of my loved ones who happen to live very nearby.

These Internet shops offer everything from gourmet fruit baskets to live lobster dinners (well, they won't be alive when they are actually eaten), from wine gift baskets to cookie bouquets. The array of gift foods is really quite amazing.

I do keep gift foods around the house, beautifully or cleverly arranged, for my guests who come to my house or for those whom I visit in person during those gift giving times. The Internet provides assistance to me even in these cases, because it is packed full of great ideas for arranging and wrapping gift food.

So join me in thanking the Internet for allowing me to walk through an aisle of a store, empty handed, with a huge smile. I can do that, now, just to soak up the atmosphere of the season. I'm a tourist when I'm there instead of a harried shopper.