The Galentine’s Day packages are all done and everything has arrived, so now I will not feel like I’m spoiling any surprises if I discuss what was IN them. And also, this will enable you to assemble a Swistle Target care package for yourself or for someone else, if that’s something you would like to do!

I asked each winner these questions:

• Does the recipient drink coffee? tea? cocoa?
• Allergies / sensitivities / dietary restrictions?
• Prefer a sort of FOOD-BASED box or more of a NON-food-based box?
• Favorite color, in case something has a color choice?
• Would hair elastics or hair clips be of any use?
• Anything else that might be helpful to know?

and I used those for my starting point, for thinking about the person and getting an idea of them. Perhaps you will be a little irritated by the pervasive non-parallel structure of those questions, as I am, and yet not be motivated to fix them, as I also am not.

For MANY of the packages, I began by choosing a mug to contain the answer to the first question, and because mug-plus-hot-drink feels cozy and affectionate to me. This section of the post may be a little discouraging, because hardly any of these are in stock anymore. (Some of them may still be available in the actual Target store, which is where I found the first mug for myself after it sold out online.) But the way I FOUND these mugs was by searching “mug” and/or “OpalHouse mug,” and that is where I would start if I were doing this again: Target always has an assortment of cute mugs, and there’s no need to have These Exact Ones.

My favorite color is green, and it’s hard to find things in green. So if someone answered that THEIR favorite color was green, I tended to choose this Cup of Happy mug, guessing that, whether or not they would have chosen this mug or its message for themselves, they would nevertheless enjoy its rare greenness. I also chose it for people who did NOT say their favorite color was green, just because I liked it and thought it was a pretty good cheerful mug for a care package.

More examples of mugs I chose:

Hello Gorgeous mug. Friendly! Flattering! It doesn’t have to be weird that your mug is making a pass at you!

 

You’re Doing Great mug. The one I sent had different colors/design, but that one is now out of stock, replaced by this one, and I would have just as happily sent this one if this were the one available at the time. This seemed like an especially good mug for a care package sent in These Uncertain Times, I thought. WE ARE DOING GREAT, CONSIDERING.

 

This Is Going Well mug. I have this mug and enjoy it on days when things are not going well. (I also find this Nope mug persistently amusing, for reasons I can’t quite put a finger on.)

 

Floral mug. This one wasn’t available yet when I was sending packages or else I definitely would have sent it in some of them. I include it now in case you are thinking of putting together a pretty Mother’s Day package for someone.

Next! I added the coffee and/or tea and/or cocoa to put INTO the mug. For coffee drinkers, I often chose this pretty bag of Starbucks coffee:

It seemed so cheerful and hopeful to be talking about spring. If I were creating a care package at a different time of year, I would pick whatever seasonal blend was available at the time.

Or sometimes I sent this cold brew concentrate, either black or caramel, because that seemed fun and like something someone might not buy for themselves as easily as they’d buy a bag of coffee grounds, and because I was surprised it was available for shipping when it is so heavy and liquid.

 

Sometimes I added some of these little flavored creamers I like:

 

For tea drinkers, I liked to choose a Harney & Sons tea, because it comes in such pretty tins, and because it seems like the sort of thing a person might not just casually buy for themselves the way they’d buy a $2 box of tea at the grocery store. I chose WHICH tin based on (1) what the recipient said about tea (caffeinated/herbal, their usual preferred flavors, etc.) plus (2) what the recipient said about their favorite color. I would reluctantly allow the tea itself to outweigh the color of the tin, but it WAS fun when someone said, for example, that they liked herbal teas and the color green, and I could send them a perfect combination:

But sometimes the fancy tin took up too big a chunk of the budget for a particular recipient (i.e., there were other things I MORE wanted to send them), or I had some other reason for wanting to send a different tea, so sometimes instead I sent one of my own less expensive favorites, such as probiotic tea in lemon ginger (tastes better) or lavender chamomile (more emotionally soothing).:

Or one that isn’t necessarily one of my favorites, but falls firmly into the Fun To Try and Maybe You Don’t Already Have It category, such as Tazo Glazed Lemon Loaf.

 

For cocoa drinkers, sometimes I sent a box of Lucky Charms hot chocolate, because I had just mentioned it in a post about some fun things I’d added to a Target order, and I thought that might have made other people interested to try it too. I chose this option more often if I knew the recipient had children because, for myself, I wanted to try one envelope of it and that was enough, and it’s nice to have children to surprise with the extras. I also chose it more often for recipients who seemed like they needed some fun/joy, because I found the entire concept delightful: the odd product combination! the little envelope of familiar cocoa, attached to a little separate envelope of cheery marshmallows!

 

But sometimes instead I chose to send my new favorite weird fun-to-try hot chocolate, which is this cinnamon one I bought for pure novelty and am now on my second box of:

 

And sometimes I added a bag of fancy Smashmallow marshmallows:

 

Next! I added TREATS and SNACKS. Because this care package idea started as a Galentine’s/Valentine’s thing, I liked the idea of a box of chocolates; I often chose a box of Ferrero Rocher, which is one of my own favorites:

 

For the earlier packages, I often included a bag of Valentine’s candy, like Valentine’s Hershey Kisses, but then those sold out. For a few, I included a bag of Cadbury mini eggs:

Sometimes I included a box of this cookie-brownie mix, which is another of my own favorite treats:

 

Sometimes a bag of kettle corn, which has been one of my dearest friends during this pandemic:

 

And/or white cheddar Popcorners, another of my favorites:

 

If the recipient was doing keto, I sent one of my own top favorite keto treats, these Quest peanut butter cups:

 

NEXT! Fun little beauty/care items! Pretty much everyone got a nail polish. Sometimes I chose one based on the recipient’s favorite color, but otherwise I mostly chose this smacks-of-spring Lacey Lilac:

 

I have one of these wee little pots of Vaseline lip therapy next to my reading chair, and I don’t stop being charmed by how wee it is, and I liked how the pink/rose thing fit into the Valentine’s/spring concepts, and so I sent out a lot of these, too:

 

I had a lot of beauty face masks accumulating in the bathroom cabinet, and recently I stopped trying to save them for a special occasion (especially since I would never use them before a special occasion, just in case I might have an unexpected reaction), and just started USING them, so those were on my mind when I was trying to think of fun little beauty things. Sometimes I chose one based on the person’s favorite color, not because the color of a face-mask package MATTERS, but just because I think it makes your eyes happy if you open up a box and see a color you like, and because I knew I didn’t know what kind the person would want ANYWAY, so Favorite Color seemed as good a way to decide as any. Or I would choose a pink/red one, for the Galentine’s/Valentine’s theme. Or I would choose a hydrating option (because it was winter) or a lavender option (for stress) or a peeling option (for fun).

 

I was going for a Tenderly Taking Care of You theme for these packages, and so I sent out a lot of my favorite Pond’s face cream:

I love this stuff, and it feels like one of those products that endures because it just keeps being good. Products with charcoal or herbs or algae may come and go, and those are enjoyable too, but Pond’s just keeps being Pond’s and it’s comforting to use something so reliable.

 

I also sent a fair number of Thayer’s rose petal facial mists, which I use—among many, many other facial mists, because once I started acquiring them it was difficult to stop:

 

Hand soap is a Love Language now, so I think every single person got one of those. As long as the recipient didn’t mention an aversion/allergy to scented things, I generally sent my own favorite, which is Everspring lavender bergamot, and I chose the foaming kind because it’s more fun and because that’s what I buy because it’s more fun:

 

Toward the end of the packages, I stumbled by accident on THIS gorgeous creature, and chose it for I think every single one of the remaining packages:

It’s ORANGE AND PINK! The tiger’s TAIL is on the back of the bottle!! It says “Be gentle with yourself” on the side!! What could be more perfect for Galentine’s Day???

 

Then it was a matter of adding miscellaneous things based on my sense of the recipient. SOME recipients became notecard twins with me (these cards are EXTREMELY MY VIBE):

 

SOME recipients joined me on my current Trying Weird Cereals journey (I take one day off from keto per week, and the FIRST THING I eat on those days is CEREAL):

 

SOME got cozy socks, until it started feeling too springlike for that:

 

They’re out of stock now, but while I was still trying to find heart/Valentine’s items, SOME recipients got heart-shaped paper plates:

and/or a heart-shaped melamine plate:

and/or glitter heart stickers:

and/or these heart baggies:

Once the heart baggies sold out, I switched to sending these elephant/heart ones:

 

When it became March and I switched from a hearts theme to more of a spring theme, I sent a lot of these spring floral string lights, which I also bought for myself:

and one or the other or both of these spring bunny/floral melamine plates, which I also bought for myself:

and sometimes the coordinating paper napkins:

 

SOME recipients got fabric face masks, especially if it worked with their favorite color:

 

SOME recipients got a cheery dish towel. First I was sending out a heart-patterned one, but then that sold out, and then I was switching to more of a SPRING thing, so then I sent this one in yellow or occasionally in pink:

 

If the recipient were a teacher, or someone else who would be doing a lot more hand washing/sanitizing, sometimes I sent moisturizing hand sanitizer:

or a repairing hand mask:

or an overnight hand treatment:

or this Neutrogena hand cream, which is really good and I’d forgotten all about it:

 

For recipients who seemed like they needed some color and fun, I sometimes chose this pack of bowls:

and/or a pack of LED light-up balloons:

and/or these little cuties:

and/or this fancy little gentleman (they have new ones seasonally; search “Spritz bird”):

 

I sent flower earrings once or twice, but then remembered not everyone has pierced ears, and some people have grabby babies, and etc., so I stopped:

 

I asked the hair-accessories question mostly because of these spiral phone-cord hair elastics, which I have and love:

and for this cheery springlike bow barrette, which I didn’t buy for myself at the time but now have added to my cart:

[Hello, I am here from the future to add a note to myself, and to you, which is to use the search term “Bullseye’s Playground” on the Target site (and then, I recommend, sort price low-to-high). Tons of odd not-very-expensive interesting things such as animal-shaped planters, fake tulips, inexpensive yoga equipment, seasonal dish towels, cute dish cloths, pretty jar candles, wall stickers, fairy lights—a bunch of stuff I wish I’d seen when I was making the packages. And tons of things in MULTIPLES (four plants, three jar candles, four towels, ten fake tulips), which would be perfect if you were ordering things to assemble gift bags for local friends.]