12 Days of Christmas
by Donna Bayes
The 12 Days of Christmas gift basket has been a successful gift idea for several years. Here's how it works: The husband or boyfriend is to give a gift each of the 12 days of Christmas (either beginning 12 days before Christmas--Dec 14--or starting on Christmas and going for 12 days after). Ideally, you would "teach" him to bring the gift home from work and place it on her dinner plate or her pillow. Girls, wouldn't you just LOVE for your man to do that for YOU??
I remember one wife telling me later that all the other teachers in the teacher's lounge waited eagerly to hear what she got each day! They loved it and wished their husbands would do something as romantic! Once I had a guy buy TWO 12 Days for two different women. He even paid postage for me to mail them anonymously! I mailed them to work and heard back that the ladies in the offices were going nuts wondering who the secret admirer was.
I sold them at ball games and at offices...wherever I was that I saw a man that I knew. I asked him if he'd like a Christmas gift idea for his wife that would pay "rich rewards for months to come." (with a twinkle in my eye!) They were immediately intrigued! I then asked them which price range they preferred, and usually they took the middle one. They left wrapping and selecting the products totally up to me. I assured them that their wives would be pleased.
The first year I wrapped each of the twelve gifts differently! NEVER again! It was waaayyy too difficult and time-consuming. The next year I used green metallic tissue paper with gold ribbon and wrapped each of them in the same paper and ribbon. The basket full of gifts that I took to the husbands were gorgeous and dramatic! I included 14 Gift Cards that read "On the 12 Days of Christmas My True Love Gave To Me." The two extra cards were for screw-ups! I also gave the men a "cheat sheet" of 12 "love note" sentences that they could write on the gift cards. I felt a personal responsibility to help the men be romantic!! :)
I just gave the man a set of cards that they could personally write on and not worry about which gift they took home on which day, but if they want to give all 12 gifts at once, you could include this poem. Debbie Busch actually has a set of cards that attach to a specific gift for a specific day.
Here's our 2012 gift sets. The hardest thing about doing the 12 Days is thinking up what should go in the baskets. The work has been done for you here.
If you can't order certain things, then substitute with something else, but this should get you started on one of the most successful holiday selling ideas out there!