Holiday Gifts & Gift Baskets Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Patriotic Gifts’

When you have a birthday girl or boy with a summer birthday, you have a ready-made party! Summer lends itself to casual parties and you don’t have to do much to make it festive. The pool is always a fun place to host a party. Or have a party on the sand at the local beach. Your job is just to get the food and drinks there. The rest will take care of itself.

A beautiful backdrop like the ocean or a poolside deck is perfect for a party. If you’re at home by the pool, all you really need to do is bring out sandwiches, coolers full of icy cold drinks, some chips and dip, and watermelon. When the time comes, bring out a birthday cookie cake and sing Happy Birthday. Make it ultra casual so everyone feels they can just lounge around. Bring a stereo outside so you can play dance music and have extra towels on hand. Serve treats that are easy to grab on the go like Rice Krispy treats and cookies as well.

If you’re going beach side, have everyone join you at the beach at a certain time. Bring coolers of cold drinks and foods that don’t require much preparation and are easy to eat. You might make up individual boxes for each guest so they have a lunch all set to go. Get boxes for take out from a craft store and include an apple, a sandwich, chips, and cookies. Let guests grab their own drinks out of the coolers. Instead of having a messy cake at that beach, bring a tray of cupcakes which are easier to eat and don’t require any cutting. Have lots of extras on hand like extra bowls of chips, different types of cookies, and even a cheese and crackers tray if you like. The food should be simple as most of the party will be spent in the water or lounging on the sand. Have extra beach towels or spread out a big blanket or two.

Set up a beach volleyball net and bring a few balls. Get a friendly game going. Offer sunblock to those who may have forgotten it or give out little tubes of sunblock as favors at the beginning of the party. You can also do personalized water bottle labels that say “Happy Birthday Dave” or whatever you’d like. They are easy to print off your computer. Just glue them over existing water bottle labels.

If you plan on having a nighttime event, bring materials to build a camp fire. Check to make sure you’re allowed to have a fire on the beach first, of course. If your party is in July, bring some sparklers or other fireworks as a patriotic gift for your guests. Then toast up some s'mores and make it a real cookout. You can even do a clambake if you make a large enough fire. Many companies will deliver an entire clam bake to you in tins for cooking, so all you have to do is set it on the fire. You’ll need more durable plates and napkins. So set up a table that can house utensils, napkins, and plates. You can have each item in baskets so they are easy to transport and serve from on the table. Bring garbage bags so clean up is really easy.

The History of Memorial Day:

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation's service. Memorial Day was first observed on May 30th 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states. It is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May (passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act of to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays), though several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead.

At Holiday Gifts & Gift Baskets we offer a variety of patriotic and Indepence Day gifts to thank our Military men and women.  Choose from red, white  and blue cookie bouquets, snack baskets and more!

My family has a long history of participation in the armed forces - my dad, grandpa, great-grandpas and countless uncles and cousins served in the Army, Navy and Marines.  My dad's best friend is currently being cared for at a VA hospital because of injuries he sustained while serving as a Green Beret in Vietnam.  I'm very proud of the military heritage in my family, and I'm grateful for the soldiers that defend my freedom every day.

Although it's not a widely celebrated holiday (except for those who are lucky enough to have the day off from work), Veterans Day holds great meaning for me.  It's a day where I reflect on family memories (Grandpa loves to tell the story of how he celebrated the end of WWII at the top of the Eiffel Tower), I stop to say a short prayer for those who are fighting overseas, and I explain to my children why there are some soldiers away from their families in order for us to keep the luxuries that we have.

To cheer up my dad's friend in the hospital, and to thank him for his dedicated service that came with life-altering results, I'm sending him this patriotic mug gift filled with sugar free cookies.  The cookies are acceptable for his restricted diet, and the mug will be great for his morning coffee!  I'm having the gift shipped to me since dad and I will be visiting Jerry on Veterans Day - I'll be able to hand deliver the gift and see his reaction!  That will be a perfect addition to my personal Veterans Day ritual.

On October 15, 1962, U.S. intelligence experts, studying films taken by a U-2 spy plane over Cuba, were surprised to see a Soviet missile-launching area. When the public heard about a U.S. blockade of Cuba on October 22, they didn't know the full story. Neither did Washington nor Moscow:

• Nikita Khrushchev, concerned about U.S. missiles in Turkey, had persuaded Fidel Castro to accept missiles in Cuba  as a defense  gainst U.S. invasion.
• The Soviet Union had 45 missiles in Cuba. Years later, the West learned that nine of them were "tactical" nukes each with the power of the Hiroshima bomb - that could be fired at the discretion of the local Soviet commander. (At the time, U.S. missiles in Europe were controlled by their local commanders, and the ICBMs were later discovered to have electronic faults that could have caused them to launch themselves.)
• On October 22, a B-S2 strayed over Siberia and was ordered destroyed. Officers in Moscow watched by radar as a pair of MiG-I7s converged on the target; 50 kilometers from the bomber, they turned back. They were low on fuel.
• On October 23, Gen. Curtis LeMay, with the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, said, "If there is to be war, there's no better time than at present. We are prepared and 'the bear' is not."
• On the night of October 25, a wild bear climbed over the perimeter fence of the U.S. air force base in Duluth, Minnesota. A sentry shot at the shadowy figure and sounded the sabotage alarm to alert bases throughout the region. However, at Volk Field, Wisconsin, the alarm for nuclear war was triggered. Air crew, who had been told there would be no practice alerts during this crisis, rushed to take off. Luckily, the base commander phoned Duluth to find out what had really happened (the "saboteur" wasn't identified until later) and subordinate officers drove a car onto the Volk Field runway, blocking any departures.
• On October 26, saying "only lunatics or suicides" wanted nuclear war; Khrushchev offered to pull his missiles in return for a no-invasion pledge. But Cuban troops knocked down a U-2 and killed the pilot; U.S. fliers assumed they would hit back; however, Kennedy said, "We shall try (negotiations) again."
• On October 27, which was the deadline for Soviet missiles to be operational, a deal was reached and announced on Moscow Radio.  The gift of patriotic U.S.A.  troops had been scheduled to invade Cuba on October 29.

Sources: Eyeball to Eyeball, The Limits of Safety, Independent on Sunday, and news services.

Some of the dimensions of the 1914-18 war to end all wars:

• The conflict cost both sides a total of 8,5 million dead. Even on the quietest days, thousands of troops were killed or wounded - a process termed "wastage" by British officers.
• The western front soon bogged down into a stalemate from Belgium to
  Switzerland. Both sides built networks of trenches long enough in total, by some estimates, to circle the Earth. + German troops built the best trenches: they picked the high ground and designed their earthworks to be permanent. Sometimes their dugouts included wallpaper and varnished woodwork. Ramshackle British and French efforts were always wet and sometimes flooded. Opposing lines could be as close as seven metres.
• The front lines, especially during winter in low-lying Flanders, were a sea of trenches, craters, latrines, corpses, and vermin. Approaching troops could smell the trenches before they saw them.
• The men were small (by modern standards) and their packs heavy. The average British recruit weighed 132 pounds and carried accoutrements of 77 pounds, including a greatcoat that might weigh 20 to 50 pounds more when soggy. Wounded ~en drowned by the thousands in the mud; so did unlucky sleepers.
• By 1916, both sides had steel helmets instead of cloth hats.
• The enemy was rarely seen; his bullets and shells were more common. During heavy shelling, troops endured up to 30 shells a minute - a "thunderstorm" or "symphony" of sound that was felt as much as heard. Across the English Channel, the barrages of Flanders were plainly audible.
• Informal truces sprang up when barbed wire needed mending or there were soldiers to retrieve (the wounded might moan in no man's land for days).
• Big attacks were rarely surprises; they were preceded by heavy shelling and openings of the barbed wire. On July I, 1916, when the British attacked in the Sornme, they had 60,000 casualties - one man for every 18 inches of the front.
• Record heaps of munitions were used. For instance, south of Ypres, British miners tunnelled for a year to place a million pounds of high explosives into 21 shafts. On June 7, 1917, the complex was detonated; 19 shafts went up, burying 10,000 Germans and jolting the British prime minister 130 miles away in Downing Street. In 1955, another shaft exploded, jolting thevillage of Ploegsteert but causing no injuries. The last shaft, deep under Ploegsteert 'Vood, has yet to be heard from.
• Today; bones are still being discovered. The war's battlefields will yield their metal fragments for centuries, experts say. On a rainy day in Albert, France, near the Somme, the fields give off a smell of rusting iron. (Sources: The Great War and Modern Memory, Goodbye to All That, The First Day on the Somme, EyeDeep in Hell.)

Honor your soldier with one of these patriotic gifts from Cookie Gift Baskets.