Corporate Christmas Hampers in Sri Lanka

Most corporate Christmas hampers get opened once. The ribbon comes off, someone says “oh, lovely,” and the box is placed on the counter next to the other boxes, where it stays until January.

A good hamper doesn’t work like that. It gets opened, then raided, then rationed. Someone hides the last piece of something in the back of the fridge. By the end of the week, the family has opinions about which biscuit was best.

That’s what we were after with this year’s hamper, and it’s why we went German.

Germany has been baking for Christmas for centuries, and almost everything in that tradition was made to be shared over several days rather than eaten in one sitting. If you would rather start with what not to send this year, we covered that in the corporate Christmas gift nobody remembers.

Here’s how the box tends to disappear.

The first evening: stollen and mulled wine

The stollen usually goes first, or at least the first few slices do. It’s a dense loaf of butter, dried fruit and spice under a thick snowfall of icing sugar, and it’s been the centrepiece of German Christmas since bakers in Dresden were making it in the 1400s. It was always baked weeks ahead and left to rest, which is why it tastes better on day five than day one, if it survives that long.

The mulled wine is what turns it into an occasion. Glühwein is the smell of every German Christmas market, red wine warmed with cinnamon, clove and orange. It’s a strange thing to drink in Colombo humidity, and somehow it still works.

The next morning: cinnamon rolls, babka and banana bread

Breakfast is where the box gets generous. The cinnamon rolls are the obvious pick. The chocolate babka is the one people go back for, a small braided loaf with dark chocolate running through every fold, so each slice looks a little different. The chocolate banana bread, with its glaze and scattering of walnuts, tends to get claimed by whoever is up earliest.

The pretzels don’t last until breakfast. They rarely do.

The rest of the week: the cookie tin

This is the part of a German Christmas that people outside Germany don’t often get to see, and it’s where the hamper earns its keep.

The lebkuchen come from Nuremberg and are soft and honeyed rather than crisp, more cake than cookie. The Pfeffernüsse are small and white glazed, and the name means “pepper nuts,” a nod to the black pepper that once went into the spice mix. The Zimtsterne, or cinnamon stars, are made from ground nuts rather than flour and topped with a thin layer of meringue, which gives them a chew that surprises people. And the Spitzbuben, two layers of shortbread with a little window cut into the top so the jam shows through, are always the ones children pick first.

There’s marzipan too, in soft rolls and in biscotti, a quiet nod to Lübeck, which has been the marzipan capital of Germany for generations.

With coffee: the biscotti

Somewhere midweek, someone discovers the biscotti. Orange and ginger, orange and cranberry, and marzipan. They’re twice baked, which makes them hard enough to dunk, and the citrus ones are a welcome break after several days of spice.

When someone wants something less festive

Not everything needs to taste of Christmas. The cherry crumble and the date bars are there for the afternoon when someone just wants something sweet and simple with their tea. They usually go faster than you’d expect.

Why this matters for corporate gifting

A client hamper that lasts a week means your name comes up for a week. Not because anyone is thinking about your firm, but because someone at the table asks where the stollen came from, and someone else remembers.

That’s the whole point of corporate festive gifting. Send it early, ideally in the first week of December, and add a handwritten note that only that client could have received. The hamper will take care of the rest.

See the full Christmas gifts collection and our gourmet platters and hampers, or talk to us about corporate and custom gifts for bulk orders and bespoke boxes.

Frequently asked questions