Gifts from the heart: Homemade treasures

Sometimes it's the gifts that cost the least that mean the most.

This December, CBC Radio'sInformation Morning program for mainland Nova Scotia invited listerners to submit their memories of gifts given or received that didn't cost very much.

Nova Scotianssent their stories about everything from donated motel rooms to personalized radio stories,not to mention some very creative homemade gifts.

In an email, listener Faith Rogers wrote about a wedding gift from her older sister, Tina, who took a slip of ivy from herbridal bouquet "and nurtured it into a full and lovely plant."

The same sister also brought Rogers to tears one Christmas, she said, by recreating by hand a beloved set of Christmas tree ornaments from their childhood.

"It was an amazing demonstration of her love for me," Rogers saidof her sister's efforts. "They are my favourite ornaments still."

Family recipe book

Morgan Snow wrote about a treasured gift from her sister-in-law, who compiled recipes from family and friends into one book.

"It includes recipes from our great-grandmothers in their handwriting, all the way down to our two-year-old nephew," she said.

"It was truly the most special gift I have ever received," Snow said. "It brought us to tears."

She and her husband have favourites, such as "Uncle Raven's famoussalad dressing,"she said, and they try to make something new from the book every week.

Origami messages

Origami was the vessel for Karen Slater Padovani's favourite Christmas gift.

One year, she said, there was just one present under the tree from her young adult children: "an etched jar holding a candle and some sand."

Surrounding the candles were stars made from strips of paper, origami-style,Slater Padovani said.

When unfolded, she discovered her son and daughter had written a secret message inside each star.

"Some funny, some poignant," Slater Padovani said. The messages "were thanking me for all I had done over two decades."

• 2016 gift guide for avid cyclists, female magicians, sleigh lovers

"For every time you helped me up when I fell," read the inside of one star. Another praised Slater Padovani for "coming to every soccer game, even though I never scored."

Her children also included lines from their favourite books and songs from childhood, she said, as well asapologies for things that had upset her, "like using an important letter that was sitting on my desk to squish a bug."

In total, Slater Padovani said, there were about two dozen stars, "each one a gift that they were returning to me."

• How a Toronto mom got all her Christmas gifts without spending a cent