Mishloach Manot - Purim Gifts

Do you have a theme each year? Do you deliver yourself, have your child do it, use a service, etc? Do you sometimes give them earlier to someone you know you are going to see close to Purim but not on Purim?

I love the idea of a teapot theme (I collect teapots) but I think it would be too expensive for us. I think polka dots are cute too. I might do something polka dot related in the wrapping.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by a "theme" for misloach manot.

For many years, our packages used to be somewhat atypical in that they contained Girl Scout cookies instead of the traditional hamantaschen cookies. That's because my daughter was a Girl Scout and I was the leader of her troop for 9 years, and in our area the cookies would usually arrive for delivery just before Purim. Since Girl Scout cookies are kosher (OU hechsher), this is a way that I could buy more boxes of cookies. [I also used to ask to have one of our assigned kiddush weeks be during that time and I'd use several boxes of GS cookies for the kiddush in addition to other snacks. One year I put in packages of microwave popcorn that my son sold as a Cub Scout, even though traditionally the foods are supposed to be ready to eat. But the caramel corn and cheese popcorn was too expensive and would have been too messy to re-bag into individual portions.]

We put the food and candy items in paper bowls which we then wrap in the colorful cellophane often used to wrap Easter baskets. The transparent plastic is gathered up and tied with a ribbon. I've suggested that paper or plastic gift bags would be easier, but my kids insist on doing it as we have in the past. We usually make about 25-30 packages and deliver them by driving around and having the kids pop out of the car to knock on doors and deliver them. When we deliver in the neighborhood of our primary minyan (which has a high percentage of "black hat" Orthodox), it is kind of crazy with lots of people walking around in costumes and lots of vehicles doing misloach manot deliveries. This year Purim is on a school day when both my kids have after-school extra-curricular practices, so I suggested to my husband that maybe this year we'd just buy and mail the tzedaka postcards for Purim that my minyan sells (with some really cool custom cartoons drawn by a former minyan member who is a syndicated cartoonist ). But my husband says that he'll take a long lunch break from work and deliver them himself.

One item I like to put in our packages that you might be interested in, Dena, is individually packaged tea bags. I copied the idea from someone else's packages. And yes, we sometimes give them to people up to several days earlier.

Themes would be like using a popcorn bucket and putting in bags of popcorn, movie candy (kosher of course) and a can of pop. Another idea I read today was from a mom who dresses herself and her kids up in their robes to deliver baskets with "breakfasty" type foods. So their theme was breakfast food. Another one was a mom whose daughter is dressing up at Strawberry Shortcake so they want their packages to have a strawberry them. They might put in strawberry flavored candies, cake and strawberry jam. Some people do a ship theme so their container is a little ship made out of wire (or whatever), jelly candies to look like life savers and something white for a sail.

There are all sorts of themes. Sailors, pirates, lady bugs, ducks, Chinese, Scottish, Rabbits, Royal Wedding (yes, seriously), Hispanic, milk & cookies, punk rock, Las Vegas casino, Cat-in-the-Hat, monkies, Princess, the list goes on and on. Apparently people really like to match their packes with their kids costumes. I assume their children are going to deliver the packages.

If I had the money I would buy small tea pots and fill them with various cookies, tea bags, sugar packets and these really cut honey pot stir sticks. But that would get costly so I'm not doing it.

In some communities, there is also pressure to give ever more expensive mishloach manot. Since we are not rich, but we have lots of Jewish friends that we like to remember at Purim, we keep our packages fairly simple (with a touch of elegance by including some fancier chocolates and better quality tea) and not too expensive. The only exception was that last year, a minyan friend sent out a link to a Groupon offer for mishloach manot packages by a company in Jerusalem because his son who made Aliyah and was in the IDF and is really quite attractive was shown in the ad for their special deal in which if you bought Purim package to be delivered to your friends, the company would also donate a package to go to those IDF soldiers whose families were not in Israel to give them home-baked goodies. The packages seemed nice and reasonably priced, and I liked the idea of the donation to "lone soldiers", so I bought two misloach manot to be delivered our friends in Jerusalem who had hosted my family when we visited Israel or my daughter during the "home stay weekend" of her Israel youth trip in the summer of 2010.

Dena,

Only the tea pot part of your idea is relatively expensive. What if you print out a picture or outline of a tea pot with a note saying "Happy Purim" or "Chag Sameach" printed in the outline and tape that to a paper bag which you fill with the goodies mentioned. People will still get your "theme". If you make just a few of these mishloach manot for special Jewish friends and perhaps your rabbi, it wouldn't have to "break the bank".