Basket making itself can be traced back to even before pottery and stone carving. They appear in cultures all over the world, and serve both functional and spiritual purposes. In Egypt, baskets of resources were included in tombs so the dead could take things into the afterlife, whereas in Greece they were used to hold offerings to the gods.

Gift baskets are collections of often themed items that are organized in a basket to be given as a gift for special occasions. In America, baskets were woven and held harvested fruits and vegetables, through which people appreciated the earth’s gifts and abundance.

Using baskets to create gift baskets only became popular in the European Middle ages, when the upper classes began to exchange luxury food baskets, making them a form of status and wealth. Simultaneously, gift packages as care packages with things for people in need also gained popularity.

Gift baskets today have become more and more versatile and commercialized, containing anything from Easter themed candy to gardening tools, depending on what the gift basket is for. The practice of gifting baskets has shifted away from formal and traditional contexts to a more personalized context–rather than the contents of the basket, the thought behind it is what gives modern gift baskets value.

In our class, I have noticed a common theme of incorporating playlists or music into our websites. It is like we are transporting a certain emotion to our recipient through our song choices. In college life, we make playlists all the time: for studying, for parties, to create a certain ambiance for a certain audience. Music marks important events, places, times, and people.

Gifting music has had several vessels throughout time, such as cassettes, CDs, and playlists. In physical forms, such as CDs and cassettes, there is a layer of physical effort that is created since the giver puts in effort to find songs and burn them into the device. This effort and care is tangible, a reminder every time the receiver plays the music. In the modern day, music streaming has made physical mixtapes obsolete and making playlists is cheap and easy now since there is no physical work required. So, many think that the art of gifting music has lost value.

However, because premade playlists and recommendation systems are so accessible now, it makes personalized playlists even more special. It is a playlist with a touch of care that offsets any algorithm-based recommendations that Spotify might give you. So, if you are ever stuck on what to gift a friend, or just want to brighten someone’s day, consider sending them a playlist filled with songs that you think they might like.

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https://sites.elliott.computer/spring-2025-mix.html

Cherry Blossoms
Celebrating the recent Washington DC Festival, these iconic trees were gifted to Washington DC by Tokyo Mayor Yukio Ozaki in 1912. Over 3,000 trees now surround the Tidal Basin, symbolizing friendship between Japan and the U.S.

The Statue of Liberty
Gifted by France to the United States in 1886, the Statue of Liberty symbolizes shared ideals of liberty and democracy. Designed by Bartholdi and Eiffel, it stands over 305 feet, welcoming immigrants arriving by sea.

Diplomatic Pandas
China's “panda diplomacy” began in the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE). Famously in 1972, The Nixons were gifted pandas Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing. Since 1984, pandas have been loaned instead of gifted to support conservation.