Decorative picnic baskets come in many sizes, styles, and artistic flares. They can be packed with some basic cheeses and cracker varieties with a couple of napkins, or they can be full-on feasts for four to eight people, stocked richly with salmon, caviar, fruit, vegetables, sweets, wine, water jugs, dinnerware, silverware, glassware, corkscrews, and cutting boards.

Decorative picnic baskets tend to display their contents openly, with no lid. Sometimes, they are so full that they pop out of the basket for display purposes. For this reason, they make perfect gifts.

Everybody recognizes the classic rattan-woven picnic basket with the wooden handle and two flaps. You can almost smell the fresh bread wrapped in kitchen cloth, the cheeses and crackers, the freshly opened bottle of wine emanating from under the lids. These are often called vintage picnic baskets.

Another style of picnic basket has a body that almost resembles a wooden fence around a cottage. The handles splay out from the sides, and the goodies practically overflow from the edges of the basket. It makes a wonderful gift upon arrival at a reunion, or a great gift of thanks upon departure.

Still, other decorative picnic baskets can be more functional, as well as gorgeous. A wicker basket might have a lid that, when you open it, unveils a stack of plates held in place by a red ribbon, a lovely warm picnic blanket on the bottom that also acts as a cushion, the beautiful inlaid woodwork on the enclosed silverware -- the possibilities go on and on and on.