Hanukkah Shopping

One more gift to wrap before shipping.  It's an irregular one, more suitable for a gift bag than a box.  My tradition of holiday shopping transitioned after marriage.  As a youngster, my parents would get each child one gift and the children would choose one gift for each parent.  My wife's family had a different approach, one quickly adopted by me.  They would arrange for each person to open one token present with each candle.  Our Christian friends would call them stocking stuffers, maybe even less expensive than those.  A candy bar, a handkerchief, a book.  Something nominal each night.

When we married, we engaged in professional training programs that located us about 200 miles from my kin and 300 miles from hers.  It was impractical to get each person eight gifts, so my siblings and father, and hers, followed my tradition of one each for the holidays.  Boston had just begun to experiment with suspension of Blue Laws for the Christmas shopping interval.  I had most Sundays off, and my program gave us a variable holiday to allow a day off to shop for gifts.  Shabbos was never an impediment.  My wife got her eight, as did I.  Downtown Boston had endless retailers, some large, some small, as did Mass Ave in Cambridge.  

Training done, adequately paying jobs secured, permanent housing purchased.  Then expansion of our gift list by children and now grandchildren, with some contraction of parents and sibs.  The single larger presents largely stopped, the smaller gifts for household, or used to be household, continued, now approaching fifty years.

Shopping and shipping have also changed.  Blue Laws lapsed decades ago, leaving Sundays as a day available for whatever people wanted to do, including shopping.  Retailing changed.  Big Box stores and enormous chains dominate the retail landscape.  Those places to get cheap stuff: Zayre, Caldor, Woolworths, are all blessed memories.  Purchasing through e-tailing works well for substantial items, less well for tchotchkes that need shipping to multiple places.  We also no longer have those Main Street gift shops that once provided me with local, small-market craft items.  In its place came periodic craft fairs.  And I expect to travel once or twice a year.  While away, I look for an inexpensive item made locally that I can place in a drawer for a few months on returning home, then ship to a recipient for Hanukkah when the season arises.  My first Hanukkah purchase typically occurs in the summer.

Over fifty years, the transport of items has also changed.  The USPS has largely privatized, now competing with UPS and FedEx.  For my convenience, there are also franchises that will box and ship for me.  I prefer a small operation in a strip mall near me, but there are UPS Stores, Fed Ex, and Staples that make this convenient.  It allows me to bundle each recipient's items and pay a single fee.

But much like fifty years ago, the selection and wrapping remains a pleasurable annual task for me.  With my current recipient list of three young adults, two infants, and a wife, my share comes to 28 presents.  Over the years, I've learned to set categories.  Each can expect an edible, those items that cost a few dollars, come in a package that can be wrapped, and need no refrigeration.  The women can expect a bauble.  Earrings now come in so many variations that it's easy to make a sports team logo or image of a cat dangle from each lobe.  Team swag comes as mugs, clothing, or anything else clever admen can hire artists to create for mass production.  Things handed to my wife with each Hanukkah candle require no weight considerations.  Shipping by rail or air does better with candy, textiles, and jewelry as transport fees correlate with weight.  The shape of the item also matters.  I prefer rectangular that I can gift wrap.  Books, cloth items that can be folded and placed into boxes, either purchased or harvested from boxes of printer ink or k-cups boxes.  I have gift bags, most designed for giving, a few more in the style of a paper bag that can be made more visually appealing with a bow or decal.

Each year I can expect a few unique quirks.  These past two years, my edibles selections seem different.  Since I maintain a kosher diet, I would not gift to somebody else something I would not eat myself.  I think this is part of the ethical basis of our holidays and our personal relationships.  Until two years ago, I could expect a kosher marking on the wrapping of most sweets.  Not so the last two years.  Chocolates and baked products that had been part of my gift purchases for years often lack the certification that I seek.  Most anything made in the Mediterranean countries, Turkey, Greece, Italy, no longer contract with the rabbis.  Nor do the Belgian chocolates I used to give my wife or mail to my kids each Hanukkah.  I do not know why.  It could be innocent reasons like changes in ingredients or manufacturing sharing equipment with non-kosher products.  Or more sinister, countries that no longer want Jewish symbols on their packaging as a political statement.  In any case, the market share of kosher consumers is small enough that omission of the certification will not affect profits.  Or what was once a symbol of quality, divine approval of the product, has become an association of the manufacturers with misconduct.  Either interpretation, the selection of items has contracted for me.  So anything edible now comes from an international conglomerate or an American producer, where kosher remains a stamp of quality.

At the other pole, despite rising prices that have changed voting patterns, the price of logo items has not accelerated.  Stuff carrying local team emblems has proliferated.  So do corporate logos of snob appeal etched into glassware or imprinted on golf balls.  Cosmetics at discounters like T.J. Maxx remain plentiful.  Soaps, lip gloss, facial brushes, creams all remain within acceptable price ranges.  And most come in easily wrappable boxes.

While gift certificates are tempting, I only include one for my wife among my 28 selections.  The holiday should generate a certain gratitude.  Among mine are prosperity not only for myself but for children who each hold professional positions with large employers.  They have and fritter more than the $10 any gift card from me would afford them.  Instead, the challenge for gift selections now and fifty years back has been to assess the uniqueness of each person.  While they could buy themselves anything I might wrap for them, they likely won't.  A son who inherited my fondness for the kitchen can expect something to enhance his experience there.  My ladies who like occasional pampering can expect an indulgence or two among what I purchase on their behalf.  They are the recipients.  As the donor, I get to think about each of them as I move from department to department in a store or from table to table at a craft fair.  What might I run across that is not available to them?  A local craft with the image of their favorite childhood cartoon, a team that dominates where they once lived but has been overwhelmed by the teams of their current cities, an item taken from a vendor from a place I have visited but they have not.  Each person, even the two infants, needs their husband, dad, or grandpa to think about them.  For fifty years, I've given it my best effort.  Some elements now easier than they once were, others more challenging.  As each candle gets its flame for the eight days of Hanukkah, each person will have a moment of glee.  Less the product, more the kinship.

Sending Gifts

Periodically, over many decades, I've sent gifts by the US Postal Service.  I've had the good fortune of living my adult life primarily with my wife, mostly in proximity to her relatives.  My kinfolk had just the right distance.  Easier for me to get to them when I wanted to than for them to travel to me.  Birthdays and Hanukkah generated gifts.  My wife and I would wrap them, put them in cartons by destinations, and ship them to the recipients by parcel post.  E-commerce existed, but not in its current form.  I could order from Sears or JC Penny's catalog, but never did.  On occasion, I would receive an edible package as a gift, maybe fruit basket or an array of nuts in packages.  I never sent them.  To a large extent, I still shop as I always had.  With the emergence of Amazon and onIine divisions of most retailers, sometimes I will select a birthday gift, filling a form to have the company ship it to the recipient instead of to me.  More often than not, the seller would add a nominal shipping fee.  They usually had another section of their order form where I could slip a brief note to accompany the gift.  When I incurred a shipping surcharge, it seemed nominal.  Not much different than me putting the items into a carton then taking it to the post office, or more recently, independent mailing services.

A much different experience came my way recently.  Visiting family on the other coast, one with cramped housing, I anticipated needing a hotel.  That city's hotels were notoriously expensive.  None stood in reasonable walking distance of where she lived.  With some effort, she found a friend who would be vacationing the week of my visit.  I could stay there all but the final night.  

The owners kept a spotless place.  Its floor space paled next to my spacious suburban home.  While my house has been a depository for enough stuff to one day burden my survivors at the Estate Sale, this lady added only tasteful, selective things to her interior.  Each room had a function with just the things needed to enable that function.  Sparse decorative elements appeared, a few wall hangings, glass items arranged in an orderly way on a few shelves, a few hooks and towels in the sole bathroom.

By allowing me to stay there, I saved a thousand or so dollars that would have otherwise gone to a hotel and transportation daily to the people I was visiting.  On returning home, I knew that I needed to send them a gift.  I also knew that my choice had to be something consumable, probably edible.  I doubt if she wants anyone other than herself choosing anything decorative.

Distance and appreciation have created a brisk market for gifts needing delivery.  I had received a few from a company called Edibles, so I looked there first.  They are known for carved fruits, the perfect short shelf life, tasty edible, marred only by what to do with the vase that contains the arranged fruits.  I thought the price seemed high, but the assortment of gifts allowed me to pick something for about $50.  While the company depends on long-distance delivery, I found it difficult to arrange shipping to the people on the other coast when I ordered it from home.  I reviewed My Cart.  That $50 item had a shipping charge of $20.  I understand that it is perishable, but that still seemed extreme.  Let me look some more.  Harry & David, perhaps the prototype of high mark-up, high quality edibles.  You get a few pears for $50 but they also offered less perishable edibles.  And everything comes elegantly packaged to impress a recipient.  $50 items were few but available.  Shipping $18.  Similar findings at Gift Baskets.  Apparently, as an industry, their standard seems to be to maximize revenues by shipping fees well in excess of ordinary employee handling and global delivery services.  A little like what we now see at restaurants and hotels.  Reservation Fee, Resort Fee.  It used to be the car dealers that would sneak stuff into the car you ordered in the 1970s era, when Americans specified the options they wanted. The Japanese companies understood how The Bump, as it was called, irritated drivers.  They just built the popular options as standard features and included them in the price of the car.  The new standard of selling cars based on respect for purchasers.

Still, I do my share of online purchasing.   I will even buy a little extra sometimes to reach the free shipping price threshold.  I know what Amazon charges to send orders from warehouse to destination.  Maybe Amazon sells chocolates or cheesecakes.  They do.  I picked one.  Same exorbitant delivery fee appeared in My Cart.  And when I tried to divert it to my hosts, Amazon took my card number and sent me an automated message that it would come to me instead of as a gift to them.  I was able to cancel it in less than two minutes. I know that Katz Delicatessen, that Manhattan classic, ships worldwide.  As a native of the Indian subcontinent, pastrami, however classic, may not be suitable for the lady who shared her home.  And they have a cheesecake, but some people are vegan.  Same limitation of chocolate, perhaps, but hardly anyone other than LDS spurns that.  Shipping fee $15.

Walmart better appreciates people like me.  They have edible gifts, though not the perishables or elegant gift packaging of the companies focused on shipping gourmet gifts.  I was able to find something there for what I intended to spend.  Shipping fee, pretty much what I would pay for Amazon or other mainstream e-tailer to send an item that does not reach their free shipping minimum.  It let me send the item to the address where I stayed.  It did not let me include a note of thanks.  A few clicks, and my new friend from India, who I did not meet during my visit, will soon have a token of my gratitude to nosh on, something vegan.

The note of appreciation is important, though.  As soon as I authorized shipping, I asked my wife to harvest one of those blank note cards with envelope that we often receive from non-profits wanting a donation. She found a few.  It's been a while since I've written an old-fashioned, once mandatory, thank you note on a handsome, sturdy card with an artistic picture on the front.  A few sentences of thanks jotted down, and signed.  Into envelope.  Stamp and return address.  Mail carrier picked it up the next day.  I'm not sure if my note or the gift basket will arrive at her home first.  She will be appropriately thanked.

Gift Honoraria

Some honoraria and minor awards have accumulated.  Gift cards for serving as a research subject.  Minor awards for OLLI contests.  I've not redeemed any of them, but carry a $50 Bill with a portrait of US Grant in my wallet.  Not every place accepts them anymore.  A Target card.  Some Barnes & Noble cards.  Now an Amazon $50 voucher sent online from a research project.  Plus a $25 Visa card as a rebate for replacing my tires last year.

I don't need any stuff, or particularly want any stuff.  Not that there isn't stuff that I like owning.  My fondness for pens knows no limits.  I bought two cartridge pens from Amazon in the last year, one to replace the first that malfunctioned.  I have multiple sets of daily and weekly planning pens that I rotate.  They have five colors:  Black= Most tasks; Blue=My home; Green=professional; Red=Financial; Purple designates which tasks each day have identifiable endpoints.  I would perhaps like a set of Flair pens in those colors.

In the past I have purchased harmonicas, which I almost never play.  Perhaps I would return to my childhood violin if I had a functioning bow.  They run about $40.  Or a new instrument.  For $50 Amazon could introduce me to a recorder, bugle, or bongos.  Mandolins, ukeleles, and low end guitars exceed budget.  All but the violin bow exceed any serious desire to acquire them.

In retirement, I have enough clothing.  Anything suitable as office or synagogue wear has been replicated many times over.  One pair of jeans, perhaps two, seem worthy of repair of one and replacement of another.  I have shirts, daily pants, shoes to excess.  Though I really like the white New Balance shoes I bought there last year.  Maybe a parallel pair in black would get worn to different places than where I currently wear the white ones.  

There are logos.  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Eagles, SLU, Mizzou.  Some of my cards channel me to Barnes & Noble which sponsor enough college bookstores to create irritating markups for mugs and t-shirts.  The cards together would not subsidize one of those black and maple chairs with the university seal that we sit on while waiting in the Dean's office.

Perhaps Judaica.  My home is already fully functional.  I bought an Atarah for my tallit online many years ago.  I forgot if the purchase came from Amazon or a site dedicated to Judaica.  And Amazon gave me the best price on a Mezuzah Klaf to replace one damaged from my office.  But I don't need anything.

Finally my kitchen.  When I need something, or see something that would enhance my performance there, I just buy it on sight.  I added a set of milchig storage bowls on sale at my usual supermarket.  My milchig mandoline failed, a super flimsy item.  I could justify replacing that if I had more occasion to slice vegetables used in dairy preparation.  I seldom do that.  Cookware I have to excess.  What I need for entertaining I have to excess.

Plastic cards sit either in my wallet or in the containers with which they were presented.  An online card is a first for me.  That I need to redeem lest it float in cyberspace, never fulfilling what the research grant that purchased it intended for their subjects to enjoy.  I need to make a decision.

Nominal Gifts

As I married into my wife's family, I immediately adopted their holiday gift customs, or really created more of a hybrid with my own family's traditions.  Birthdays thoughtful but not extravagant. Mother's Day and Father's Day, similar to birthdays.  Our families diverged at Hanukkah.  They gave a token gift each night.  My family arranged for each person to have one substantial gift, though less costly than a birthday.  The intent was less the gift but some thought into what the recipient enjoyed.

I first earned my own money when I began my internship, with marriage the following month.  I had a surviving father, one brother and one sister.  Father got something for birthday, Hanukkah, and Father's Day.  Sibs just Hanukkah.  My wife handled her household similarly, but each person got something for their birthday.  When just my wife and me, we exchanged a token gift with each candle.

Boston made shopping fun.  We set strict holiday limits.  No single item over $3 for anyone.  Mass Ave in Cambridge, where we lived, had small specialty shops lining most of its path from Harvard to MIT.  Trinkets, glassware, kitchen gadgets, reduced price books.  My car would get me to Caldor and Zayre.  The T would bring me to downtown Boston which boasted the largest, most diverse Woolworth's in America.  Mugs and other items with people's names, including some less common ones.  Filene's Basement.  Very large bookstores.  And during my stay there, my hospital employer offered a floating holiday for each employee to have a shopping day off.  All I needed to do was arrange coverage from a colleague, much like a sick day.  During my stay there, Massachusetts suspended its mandated Sunday store closures between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  My chance to wander around Boston thinking of other people.  Since much had to be wrapped and shipped, with few options other than the Post Office, the gifts needed to be obtained in advance of the holidays, with Hanukkah usually preceding Christmas by about two weeks.

Over forty years, families evolve.  We settled in a permanent home.  My father remarried.  My siblings disconnected enough from us to get dropped from the gift list, but not before several items went unshipped over a few consecutive years.  I added two children, now grown and independent.  Inflation and prosperity relaxed the spending limit, though still nominal Hanukkah limits.  Stores stay open seven days weekly as a routine.

The retail landscape has also changed.  There is no Woolworths, Caldor, Zayre, K-Mart.  Even near Harvard Square, when I have rare occasions to visit, the boutiques have been taken over by familiar chains.  Those small shops with unique stuff of nominal cost survive mainly in regional Farmer's Markets or Outlets.  And an offshoot of prosperity is the accumulation of stuff.  Birthdays have shifted from tangibles to experiences.

My current challenge is to identify four things for my daughter who lives on the opposite coast, four each for my son and daughter-in-law who live within driving distance but still require shipping, with my wife also selecting four for each of them.  For my wife, her Birthday and eight small items to accompany the nightly candles.

Still, the goal has not changed.  Each recipient has a personality.  Each recipient has interests.  Little indulgences for my daughter.  Sports for my son.  Cats for my wife and daughter-in-law.  The shopping, or at least gift consideration, has no season.  When I visit museums, parks, even foreign countries, I keep my eye out for gift shops and souvenirs, as they are not likely to visit the same place.  Edibles are often regional and inexpensive.  I insist that they be Kosher.  Many of the specialty candies and syrups and hot sauces with extensive shelf presence during the holiday season would be potentially Kosher but the companies that make these seasonal items would not find the expense of Kosher certification cost-effective for limited production goods. Mass market sweets with a Kosher mark on the package still appear on shelves.  Every major department store in my area has a small Hanukkah section.  My quota of twenty items always gets completed.  And then wrapping and shipping, where we bundle my four for each child with my wife's four.

Despite the effort, the traditions, the periodic modifications, despite all this Hanukkah is not our principle Jewish celebration.  Passover holds that distinction.  Another season of shopping with intent to offer, this time edibles with stringent limitations.  But Hanukkah retains its American popularity, partly due to treasured ceremonies, partly due to its place on the secular calendar.  A project of its own.  One that needs creativity and thinking outward.  

Hanukkah Gifts

As newlyweds, or perhaps even before, we established a gift protocol along the lines of my in-laws family.  Parents, grandparents, and siblings would get one not too expensive gift from each other.  Spouses and children would arrange for one small gift each day.  Over time, we have become the senior generation.  Once we had kids, our siblings fell off the gift list.  Now we have our first new addition in a while, a fiancee, leaving me with 20 trinkets to acquire this year, eight for my wife and four each per child while my wife assumes a similar number.

Geographic realities made us experienced at shipping them on time.  Inflation, though, has only taken a minor toll.  We get less for our spending limit but there is no barrier to shopping at Goodwill where discounts override newness.  My son once got a skateboard within budget that way.

Add to that a December and a January birthday, with higher spending limits, and the amount of creativity needed to fulfill expectations can be challenging, though in a gratifying way.  It may be the only time when I must consider the uniqueness of each individual on the list. 

Needed to get away, I ventured out but came home mostly with ideas.  I had purchased two items previously at a crafts display.  If I see something that shouts Hanukkah, any time of the year, I acquire it and store it in a place easy to remember.  By far the most difficult purchase was always for my father who needed nothing, wanted nothing, and kept his interests obscure.  My nuclear family has many interests.  Some like a fondness for spirits maybe need acknowledgement in only the smallest way.  We have cats, we have Jewish, we have, sports teams.  There is always an edible, always one with kosher certifications.  Even when giving gifts to office staff, none of whom were Jewish, I would never give anyone food I would not eat myself, making an exception of a turkey drive for the needy if I qualified for a free bird from the supermarket.   Food in various forms remains readily available though seasonal specialties from gingerbread houses to hot sauces to drink enhancers no longer carry that desired OU.  Since the ladies can never have too many earrings, those work well.  Sized clothing doesn't work as well but it is generally light and unbreakable when shipped.  Eventually mugs and kitchen doodads create clutter.  Cosmetics have a way of accumulating too but are technically consumable.   Glass does not ship well, particularly when filled with liquid.

Give a few other stores a shot tomorrow.  Since the gifts are small, on-line shopping tends not to be cost effective for Hanukkah, probably the way to go for birthdays.