My Most Prodigious, Jewish, Advent Box

The Advent box is part of a gift exchange between a beautiful friend of mine and me. She had created it with a few people in her life time. Some of these people had outgrown the spirit of giving (but probably never refused to receive gifts). It is a creation of at least 25 gift-wrapped presents that are placed in a shipping box and sent to the recipient who will have a gift a day to unwrap between 01.XII until 25.XII.
When I was first asked to do this, I was not told anything about prices. Since gift exchange isn't something that my family did much (we got things on our birthdays), I was not really sure what sort of things to send. She was quite surprised at first because many of the items were rather large (and heavy) kitchen gadgets; mostly with the brand name KitchenAid on them.
It started with the stand mixer. The girl practically lives in the kitchen and has quite the unleashed culinary potential. This contraption seemed to have a never-ending assortment of attachments. It has a meat grinder, a pasta roller and cutter, and ice cream maker, an ice shaver, a spiralizer with peel, core, and slice, a prep slicer and shredder, and much, much more! Over the years I have added to it. Since it is what most folks call a 'mix master', one can also pick up extra mixing bowls, storage bowls with lids, beaters, whips, and hooks.
Over the years, the gifts have gotten smaller in size, but not necessarily in value. I have about two shelves in my chest of drawers of things that I have collected along the way throughout the year; jewelry, books (mostly cookbooks), kitchen devices, perfumes, soaps, gift cards, T-shirts, tea towels, cotton sheet sets, https://cliffsvariety.com/ or just about anything from Cliff's Variety Store on Castro Street in San Francisco.
Cliff's has cookie cutters that you will never find anywhere else. It also has a variety of unusual items for the kitchen and garden. One year I got her a few ounces of bat guano. She scratched her head over that one. I reminded her that she was always talking about family members who were bat-sh*t crazy. This was an opportunity for her to reach their level
Over the years, her family has grown with grandchildren. The Advent box contained child games and gifts so that a visit to grandma's house could have an assortment of things to play with; musical instruments, Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, crayons, coloring books...
But what about my box. Over the years, this friend has listened to things that I've talked about liking, using, wanting, or asking about. They have popped into the assortments. They have included feature foods that I had never had (from the Middle East, Africa, or Glorious South), colognes that have long since left the shelves of most stores, music, old TV program DVDs...
I am at the halfway mark of my gift opening. It's a true treat. Truth be told, however, I sometimes do get gifts that I either choose to consume in smaller quantities (i.e., chocolates when I'm on a diet) or things that are just beyond my level of eating due to spiciness. That's why I hang with good co-workers who are more than happy to take the unwanted gifts.
The joy of the season simply sometimes says, "I am alive and I am thinking of you." If one is special enough, the message also includes an, "I love you," somewhere in there.