Golden for Goldie

I recently teamed up with HomeGoods to help share some sparkle this holiday season.  I absolutely love HomeGoods, and I love partnering with them even more.  Their goals of spreading happiness through creating beautiful homes is something I truly believe in.  That’s pretty much my life vision statement.

When they challenged me to create a gift basket for a deserving person in my community,  I saw in my mind exactly who it should go to.

Without divulging too many details, I’ll just say it was a friend of mine who lost a daughter this year, a beautiful baby girl named Goldie. It’s been absolutely devastating for her. As a friend, there’s not a more helpless feeling in the world. What can you possibly do? Send a card? Take flowers? Drop off a dinner? Will any of that mop up utter heartbreak? Of course not, but we try as best we can.

This time of year is especially tough on those dealing with the loss of a precious loved one, and while I know a gift basket full of treats certainly won’t take the pain away, it can maybe bring a little ray of golden sunshine to light up a dark day. So that was the plan.

HomeGoods is currently busting at the seams with golden goodies, perfect for a gold-themed gift, perfect for honoring little Goldie.

The hard part was narrowing down the choices. So. Much. Gold.

This basket was the first thing I grabbed, followed by this gold-dotted table runner. I love the designs on both!

There were tons of sentimental gifts: journals, photo albums, picture frames, memory boxes, but I kind of went in another direction with a loose “Christmas Morning” theme.  I did get this journal though. (I loved it so much I got two and gave one to myself!)

Other items include a gold-wrapped box of chocolates, a ceramic muffin tray and muffin mix, hot cocoa mix, a cozy blanket and a golden mercury glass Christmas tree.

I love that HomeGoods has such a varied selection. Need a tea kettle? And a gift for your best friend? And a new set of sheets? And an enormous gingerbread man cookie cutter?

They’ve got you covered.

Look, I made a gif! This is my first one ever. Here you can see the step-by-step creation of the gift basket, a very technical process that required this gif. (Not really, but it was fun. Click over if you are in a reader and can’t see it, and really want to see it for some reason).

I topped it all off with a big golden bow, and took it over to my friend.  Based on the amount of hugs she gave me, I think she really liked it. She took the bow off and put it on top of her little golden-themed Goldie tree, which put a tear in my eye. So bittersweet life can be.

Thank you HomeGoods for being so generous, and for spreading happiness, and for helping me bring a little golden sunshine to a friend who could use some.

Happy Saturday.