The Festival of Lights is around the corner and it’s time to pick up the most impressive hampers for your near and dear ones.
From dry fruits, chocolates to creative festive hamper concepts, the seasonal Diwali gifts have garnered much attention.
To make your choice easier, we give a round up of the best ones to get your hands on this season. Here’s a look at what is trending this year.
Gift a healthy hamper
The gifting tradition has evolved from traditional sweets to healthier options like dry fruits and gift hampers containing boxful of gourmet chocolates, granola and desserts. Bhavika Nahata, a pastry chef who has her workshop called ‘Dark Love’ at Dwarkanagar, says the season’s trend is a healthy Diwali hamper with an assorted dash of goodies. Her Diwali special gift hamper consists of blueberry pound cake, edible ‘chakri’ or pinwheel cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, peanut butter choco chip cookies, rose and pistachio barks, salted caramel and Nutella brownies and honey almond granola. “The orders have been pouring in. The gifting trend used to be a North Indian custom but now a lot of cross-cultural exchange is happening. I have received many orders from the Telugu and other South Indian communities who are enthusiastically observing the Diwali gifting tradition,” says Bhavika, who started her venture two years ago. After completing a professional patisserie course from Bengaluru’s Lavonne Academy, she scaled up her enterprise. The 23-year-old has also been receiving bulk orders from the US. At Dark Love, you can customise your orders according to your requirements. To gift a box of goodies to your family and friends from Bhavika’s workshop, contact her at 8099950926.
Handcrafted gifts
This is a season of subtle, classy shades and innovation in presentation when it comes to gift boxes, says Trishla Hirawat, who has a home-based enterprise called ‘Art Factory Vizag’. This year, Trishla has introduced the LED trays that are a unique combination of her creativity in the art of decoupage and a sparkling touch of small LED lights bordering the wooden or cardboard trays she makes to order. Her decoupage line includes gift boxes, mason jars, trays, candles, glass tea-light holders and gift baskets. She customises the gifts according to requirements of her clients. “The gifting tradition has really picked up well in the city. This time the trend is more towards gifts that have decorative tea-light holders. Most people are preferring tea-lights to diyas since the tea-lights are less messy and stay for longer duration,” says Trishla. Her tea-light holder creations come with mason jars and rangoli designs in various shapes and sizes.
Seema Tikmani who has a gift wrapping enterprise says that Kalamkari prints are much in trend and have made their way into the gift themes as well. “Decorated cardboard trays with Kalamkari printed cloth and pompoms are the season’s trend. Tea-light holders with pompoms and gotta patti and similarly designed door hangings are quite a rage among Diwali gift concepts this year,” she adds.
And if you have less time in your hand to place orders for Diwali gifts, stores like Darling’s Paradise have plenty of options to choose from. Pick up some deepams from their vast collection or some scented and floating candles to make your gift box attractive.
A personalised twist
Gifts with personalised twists give in a different glitter to the Diwali hampers. “It gives a very unique look and the gifts stand apart when you add in a little creative touch,” says Anita Gupta, who makes her personalised gifting ideas for festive hampers with her own themes for family and friends. This year she has simple themes to light up the hampers. “I am planning to keep the dry fruits in two small crystal glasses and present it along with a scented candle. My other idea is to wrap the gift with handmade paper and paste two sparklers and a tea light on it, which are symbolic for Diwali,” says Anita. With eco-friendly theme being the latest trend, dry fruits and chocolates presented in jute bags with a colourful thread is another popular DIY Diwali gift theme this season,” she adds.
