Lovable Gift Basket Ideas for A Graduating Senior

Image courtesy of The Spruce. 

Graduation is a really important milestone, and a graduating senior is likely filled with many different emotions as they head towards it, and one of those emotions can be excitement when you hand them a gift. A great gift for a senior will be a gift basket. This is a gift you can set up on your own or buy pre-made. You just need to decide what goes in the basket. So what should you put in a graduating senior’s gift basket? We can help you figure it out!

Gift Cards

A few gift cards make a well rounded gift. 

Send a GiftYa gift card

When you want to stuff a senior’s gift basket with all types of gifts that don’t take up much space, a few gift cards will help you accomplish that! Gift cards can fit snugly into any part of a gift basket, and give a graduate mini surprises as they look around and find them. With GiftYa, you can choose the store for each gift card, and choose exactly what amount goes on each to give exactly the type of gift you want.

A gift card for UberEats is ideal for a graduating senior. There’s nothing students love more than ordering takeout, and with an UberEats gift card, they have a choice of foods from so many places. UberEats is one of the most convenient ways for a student to enjoy a restaurant meal without having to get dressed and leave the home, whether that is a parent’s house or a dorm room. The food will also be there within an hour to satisfy a busy student. 

If you want to get a graduating senior a gift card to a place where they can get anything they could want, get one from Amazon. An Amazon gift card gives a shopper access to products all over the web, and they will have it delivered to their door within just a few days. When someone shops at Amazon, they get to choose from clothing, electronics, and much more. It is one of the most convenient places to buy from. 

A gift card for Insomnia Cookies will sweeten up a graduating senior’s nights. Insomnia Cookies will allow someone to enjoy several types of soft and delicious cookies in different packages, and you can order them up until about 2 am. So whenever a graduate has a serious cookie craving, they can visit Insomnia Cookies with a gift card and get chocolate chip cookies, snickerdoodle cookies, double chocolate chip cookies, brownies, and even ice-cream. 

When you want to give a senior a gift card that’s been personalized, visit Gift Card Granny. Gift Card Granny will let you build a custom gift card that can be used at any store. You will get to customize the card with images, messages, and videos, and it will feel even more personal than the average gift card.

Get a Custom Visa Gift Card

Sweets

Sweet treats for a sweet celebration. 

Chocolate

You can never go wrong with packing a gift basket with chocolates. A pack or more of delicious chocolates will be a welcome gift for just about any graduate. They can eat it all in one go to celebrate or space it out and enjoy it over time. The right chocolates will fit perfectly into a basket and make a graduating senior feel really happy to receive it. 

This assortment of truffles and chocolate covered treats will make an ideal addition to a large gift basket. It comes with chocolate covered pretzels, double silk truffles, peanut clusters, and more. This is the kind of chocolate assortment that a hard-working new graduate really deserves on their big day. 

A Godiva gift box will be filled with chocolates that any graduate would enjoy. It comes with an assortment of nine different truffles with different shapes and fillings, and six are milk chocolate while three of them are dark chocolate. It offers a bit of variety for a graduate, and fits well alongside other boxes of chocolate. 

For a really familiar bag of chocolates, add in a bag of some of the most famous chocolates around. An assorted variety pack of all the most popular chocolates is sure to include one or more of a graduate’s chocolate favorites. They will get two pounds of a blend of Snickers, Twix, Kit Kats, and more. 

Hard Candy

For the graduate whose favorite treat is hard candy, you can get them a few candy bags that they will want to devour. You can get popular hard candies, nostalgic ones, or a mix of both. If this is a graduate’s favorite type of candy, they will love the opportunity to indulge in their favorite treat. 

A mix of popular hard candies is the best option to add to the basket, especially if you only plan to include one bag. If you get a mix of all the most coveted treats the candy business has to offer, there’s no chance a graduate would end up disliking everything in the bag. A graduate has likely grown up with everything in this assorted party mix of Skittles, Nerds, Sour Patch Kids, and more, and will be happy to have a bag. 

A bag of jolly ranchers is something that any hard candy lover can appreciate. This bag contains all the original flavors, blue raspberry, cherry, grape, watermelon, and green apple. Whenever a graduate wants a super sweet treat they can reach for one of these and enjoy. 

Give a graduate a nostalgic treat with an old fashioned hard rock candy mix. This bag of old fashioned candy will introduce a graduate to a whole new brand of candy flavors. This bag of hard rock candies come in a mix of colors and designs, and will bring a graduate back to a different time. 

Skin Care

A four pack of fragrant bath bombs. 

Bath

For whatever the next path in their journey is, a graduate will always need to keep themselves fresh, and the right bath products will do that. Bath products are always a welcome part of a gift basket, and can introduce a graduate to a product they had never thought to try before. They will give someone’s skin some much needed TLC, and their senses some valuable aromatherapy. 

Fragrant bath salts can turn a normal bath into a spa experience, and one thing a graduating senior really needs to do is relax. These stress relief bath salts come in three scents, so you have a chance to pick out the likely favorite. There is lavender, rose, and eucalyptus, and it comes in a jar that you will need a large basket to fit. 

Bath bombs can turn a boring shower into a colorful, fragrant soak that will end with impossibly smooth skin. This froth bomb set from Pacha Soap Co. is an eco-friendly bath bomb set with a gentle foam. One tube contains four mini bath bombs, one of them honey almond, one French lavender, one rose water, and a jasmine gardenia. 

Moisturizer

Everyone could use moisturizer, and a graduating senior is going through so much, you can get some basics taken care of for them. Moisturizer is essential, and even if the graduate doesn’t know it yet, they will realize once they use this basket filler. Moisturizer can come in many different forms and fragrances, and you can find one that will keep a new graduate moisturized and smelling good through their next stage of life. 

An often neglected part of a busy student’s body is their hands, and you can turn that around by adding hand cream to the gift basket. This hand cream trio from Burt’s Bees will keep a graduating senior’s hands healthy and smooth for months to come. Each hand cream has its own scent. There is lavender & honey, wild rose & berry, and watermelon & mint, and it can fit into a large or a small basket. 

Want to help a graduate moisturize more than just their hands? Get them a mini moisturizer set from Hempz. There are 4 different scents inside that a graduate gets to try out and use for weeks to come. They can easily fit into a small or medium basket, and once taken out the package, fit into any small bag. 

Desserts

A sample pack of decadent desserts. 

Another type of sweet treat you can add to a graduating senior’s gift basket are baked goods. Baked goods are a great choice for any gift bag, especially for a graduating student whose favorite meal of the day is likely dessert. If you can fit treats like cookies, brownies, cupcakes, and any other dessert into it, go ahead and throw them in! 

Cookies

Cookies are a dessert favorite, and for very good reasons. They are small and simple, can come in a variety of flavors, and can always hit the spot when you’re having a craving for dessert. It is also easy to fit several cookies into one gift basket, so you can load the basket up with a favorite or fill it up with some variety. 

This Milk Bar sampler pack contains a little bit of everything. It offers classic Milk Bar treats, and those include rainbow-vanilla and chocolate truffles, a Milk Bar pie, and one of each of their famous cookies. The cookies include a chocolate confetti cookie, a corn cookie, a confetti cookie, a compost cookie, and a blueberry & cream cookie. And it all comes in a square tin with a tinted window. A graduating senior can get excited for what’s inside before even opening the box!

Want to pack a colorful assortment of iced cookies? Get a signature iced cookie assortment box from C. Krueger’s. This box of cookies can come as an assortment of 12, 24, or 36, and the flavors include glazed limoncello, classic sugar cookie, confetti cake batter cookie, peanut butter cookie, and double fudge. Each cookie is in an individually wrapped package and placed in a simple box.  

Cupcakes

Mini cakes are the next best thing behind a large cake, and you can fit several into a gift basket with the right packaging. 

For a box of cupcakes, try the buttercream frosting assorted cupcakes from Cheryl. It offers two vanilla cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes, and celebration sprinkle cupcakes. They are each individually wrapped and placed neatly in a box, and will fit well in any large gift basket. 

Pre-Made Gift Baskets

And if you want a pre-made gift basket, some vendors have put together some awesome ones for you!

This gift basket from Etsy is designed for a graduating senior. It contains a small plaque with the graduating year on it, a 4-step pedicure kit, shea butter socks, oatmeal milk & honey soap, and an exfoliating soap pouch. There is also the option to get a charmed box or a deluxe box if you want different options. 

This personalized graduation bucket from Personalization mall contains supplies for a graduating senior’s future classes or activities, and toiletries to help them take care of themselves. You’ll find pens and pencils, a water bottle, notebooks, chocolate, and mints, all things that anyone can use. 

If you want to give an all sweet gift basket, a gift box from Olive and Cocoa is filled with several treats a graduating senior will love. You can get a petite, medium, or large box, and you have the option to have chocolate pretzels, pistachios, toffee popcorn, tortilla chips, shortbread cookies, apricot jam, roasted salsa, and more. 

Getting to graduation is hard work, and now it's time for you to reward a graduating senior for all their efforts with a gift you know they’ll love. You can’t go wrong with the options above, whether you go DIY or get something pre-made!