Healthy Snack Bucket

Having such a large family, holiday gift-giving is often a challenge.  We all want to do something for each other, but finding exactly the right thing for each person with a small budget is very difficult.  As a family of frugal farmer-types, my side of the family often turns to food gifts.  Many times it is an exchange of baked breads, jams, cookies, fudge and other sweet treats.  But this year my grandparents made each family one of my favorites - a bucket full of healthy snacks!  

This plastic buckets each had a small can of nuts, apples, oranges, bananas, grapes, a container of cheese spread, and a handful of chocolates and hard candies.  This was a huge hit with my crew and after two days full of big heavy family meals, on Christmas Day night, we truly enjoyed simply snacking on the fresh fruit, nuts and some crackers with the cheese spread.  And the bucket worked great to round up the small parts to my son's new construction play set.  As I think about all the folks around town not feeling well with the flu and other illnesses, I got to thinking what a wonderful gift this would be as a pick-me-up for a friend or family member who is under the weather!