While gift baskets can be a great way to give presents, they lose some of their charm if you overuse them. However, there are many other basket-like containers that you can use instead, to save the baskets for the really special occasions.

For wine, you can put the wine in a special wine bag, decorated with wine patterns and sealed at the top, although this has the disadvantage of instantly giving away what your present is (although you could always surprise the person by putting some other nice drink in a wine bag!). Wine can also be given in a special presentation box or case, and many expensive ones come with one for this purpose, as do sets of 12 bottles.

Chocolates can be very well presented in a chocolate box, wrapped in wrapping paper with a bow delicately tied on the top gold wrapping is lovely on chocolates, because of the way it complements the browns. If you are buying chocolate from a confectioners, you may be able to get them to wrap it this way for you.

Although it can seem a little clichd, flowers often work much better in a bouquet than they do in a basket, for the simple reason that a bouquet of flowers can be easily transferred to a vase and kept for longer. Bouquets of flowers also tend to be easier to find than baskets, so you will a wider selection of different kinds of flowers to choose from.

None of this is intended to put you off giving gift baskets but its best to save them for a really special occasion, like moving home, getting a promotion, Easter or birthdays. Good baskets dont come cheap, and when you do get one, you want to be able to go all-out, not do things in half measures.