A Houston area business keeps families connected during Easter. TheSmileBox.Com provides a way for family members to send Easter baskets around the country - a service unavailable only ten years ago.

As families across the country become increasingly separated, a local business uses the Internet to connect children, parents, grandparents, and other extended family members during Easter. According to Shannon Rubio, owner of TheSmileBox.Com, Easter is the Houston area company’s third busiest gift-giving holiday, falling only behind Christmas and running almost even with Valentines Day.

When Rubio started TheSmileBox, an internet company that specializes in goody filled gift boxes that arrive in bright yellow packages, she was prepared for the traditional holidays in December and February. But only four months after the business opened in January of 2000, the company was scrambling for requests for Easter packages and products - an idea the company had never even considered. Five years later, TheSmileBox staff prepares well in advance for the deluge of grandparents, military families, aunts, uncles, and divorced parents who want to send Easter baskets but can’t get to a local retailer to have the package shipped across the country.

Rubio says one of the advantages of using an Internet company to send an Easter basket is that businesses are able to hold a large amount of unique inventory in their warehouse that many people would not have access to. Rubio relies on vendors around the country to send Easter chocolates and gifts just prior to the holiday arrives. In addition, the company works daily with major shipping companies such as FedEx and UPS, saving family members the hassle of trips to the post office.

Rubio is already lining up temporary help to work extra hours ensuring all the Easter baskets arrive on time. She says, “Ten years ago, people had little choice if they were separated from families during a holiday - usually a greeting card was all you could send. Today, technology allows people to remain emotionally connected to their family at important times, even if they are not physically near each other.”

TheSmileBox.Com is an internet based care package company located in Houston, Texas. The company was founded in January of 2000 by the mother-daughter team of MariVonne Essex and Shannon Rubio and remains one of the largest care package companies online.