In The Netherlands it has become a tradition for an employer to give its employees a ‘kerstpakket’ (Christmas package) around Christmas time. Traditionally it was a gift for poor workers with some food for their families during Christmas, nowadays it’s mostly a box filled with some food and a product. These boxes are the same for every worker and part of the products are actually never used and is often perceived as being impersonal.

As being experience focused designers we wanted to bring back the grateful perception of this beautiful tradition through making a different kind of package.

In 2010 I started a little company with a friend called Meer Kerst (More Christmas), to bring back the experience by adding value to the products with adding a story to it. The producers of the products added a personal note and the package was accompanied by a gift-letter to describe the products inside. The idea is that Christmas is as much about receiving as it is about giving, so we wanted all the products to be able to be used as a gift when the employees themselves didn’t want to use it. This experience was emphasized by the ‘packaging’ which was a fairtrade produced bag from Nepal that looked like a gift wrapped package itself. We encouraged people to give stuff away through specially designed cards and gift stickers inside the package.

We continued this company until 2013, when we all found different challenges in our careers and could not keep up with the value of our company due to time limitations.

I learned a lot from this experience and am super thankful for the joyful time and good friends I made during this adventure!