This is our second year as empty-nesters. I’m not gonna lie; while I enjoy my freer schedule, I miss my boys. I miss their smiling faces. I miss their laughter. I miss their cross-country meets. I miss their soccer games. I miss their triathlons. I miss their volleyball games. I don’t, however, miss their stinky uniforms.
So now that my kids are in college, the wheel has come circle and I’m serendipitously inspired by an idea conveyed to me by one of my old college pals, Alyce. Like any really good college friend, she has a nickname – Hal. Not going into details on that one…what happens in college stays in college.
Now that her daughter is in college, she gathers a group of gals for breakfast at her house and they put together Valentine’s care packages for their college coeds. Great idea right?! She does this neat little trick for Halloween as well. Alyce provides the breakfast and the mailing boxes, then she asks that each gal-pal bring items to place in the boxes (one for each box). As the hostess, you can snag the US Postal Service “if it fits, it ships boxes,” (very handy in case the boxes get heavy) or you can always just provide regular boxes and labels.
As the hostess, here’s a quick list of supplies that you’ll want to have on hand:
- Shipping boxes
- Mailing labels
- Sharpie pens
- Shipping tape (for securing the boxes)
Ideas for the care package items:
- See’s candy
- Various Valentine’s candy
- Microwave popcorn
- Socks (guys & gals)
- Emergency health pack (e.g. with vitamin C, Emergen-C, echinacea, couch drops, Band-Aids, etc.)
- Valentine’s mug
- Personalized stationery (for the crafty over-achiever)
- Baked goods
- Revitalizing face masks
- Lip gloss (chapstick for the dudes)
- Decorations – little hearts + a big heart for all the moms to write a note on
- And some more cool ideas from the cool chicks at Cool Mom Picks can be found here
Here’s a short video of what the finished product looked like:
Team PlanHero™ was thinking that you could do brunch, lunch, or wait for it…wine and hors d’oeuvres as alternatives to breakfast.
We’ve put together a couple of examples of how you might use our Signup Tool to keep track of who’s coming, how many boxes each person needs (e.g. I have two in college), and what each person can bring. No annoying reply-all email strings. No fishing through your emails to figure out who’s coming and who’s bringing what. Reminders are sent out automatically via email and text. Imagine that; you can be an awesome mom without the headaches!
Click here for wine and hors d’oeuvres example.
Click here for breakfast example.
Have fun and let us know how it goes!
