2013 Gift Guide: The Winter Solstice

Adopt an olive tree?  I posted this last year, and I still think it's an incredibly cool idea. 

Here’s how it works: You go to a beautiful website and scroll through the various orchards on offer. There are more than a dozen in Le Marche, Abruzzo and Sicily, with a picture of each, a little biography of the olive farmer, and a description of the oil they make. You choose the orchard you want, and “adopt” one of the olive trees.  They, in turn, send you the oil from your olives when it’s pressed.  (The next olive oil will be shipped in the spring.) 

This is, in essence, an international CSA (community supported agriculture), a way to collaborate with a farmer, become part of his farm. It offers the consumer a way to participate in the creation of a product, while providing financial security to the farmer.

Best of all - you can go visit your tree and meet the farmer.  Hard to think of a better excuse to visit rural Italy. 

There's still time; a gift costs $69, and you can print the certificate out immediately. 

In the interest of full disclosure I have to admit that I’ve still never done this. But I'm posting it again in hopes that one of my friends will get the hint.