Hadlakas Neiros Card

A hadlakas neiros card is a meaningful and beautiful present. It becomes even more meaningful when you receive five different ones. There’s Auntie Brenda’s hand-painted one, a Lucite one from your coworker, a silver one from your grandmother’s friend, and two others that are still in their boxes. That first week you make Shabbos, you spend some time before lichtbentshen fretting over which one to use, only to decide later that you prefer another one. The good news is that now you’ll have enough for each of your future daughters and daughters-in-law when they come for Shabbos in several decades. Just hope and pray that Lucite will still be in style.

A Salad Bowl

Who doesn’t love salad bowls? You’ll be encouraged to serve multiple salads each meal, especially since you received three sets of three salad bowls, all of which coordinate/clash beautifully with your new china. On your first Shabbos, you eagerly fill the largest matching bowl with lettuce and delectable veggies, only to realize that it’s meant for a family of ten, not a couple. You resign yourself to using the smallest one and bury the others under the sink next to the two clashing sets. You make a mental note to get china that will match the other bowls with the money you received as a wedding gift.

Good Old-Fashioned Money

When the reply cards start pouring into the mailbox, some are thicker than others. You know what that means: money. You eagerly rip open the envelope and beam at the check. Never mind that you don’t know the person who actually sent the check — you are simply thrilled to be its recipient. You add it to your stash of checks, and the week after sheva brachos you make a trip to the bank with the pile and deposit it. Then you struggle to appropriately convey your excitement in the thank-you note. “Thank you for your kind gift” is too vague, and “Thank you for your money, I was so excited to see it,” doesn’t sound quite right. You finally settle on, “Thank you for the gift — we bought nothing with it, but we’re sure that your $50 will someday help with a $500,000 house payment [or it may be $5 million by then].” Then you spend all $50 on stamps for your thank-you notes.

Silver Tea Chest

You never knew that you needed a chest to store your tea bags until you received this silver-plated tea chest. You lovingly place each tea bag in its appropriate section and set the chest in its place of honor on your kitchen counter. Each time you make tea, you remove one bag from its designated spot and make a mental note to refill the tea chest. Once all the tea bags are used up, the chest will remain on your counter until Pesach, when you rack your brain trying to figure out what it is.

Lucite Match Holder

Your silver candlesticks are beautifully enhanced by the presence of this rippled Lucite match holder with a perfect square of sandpaper on the side. But you will soon learn that some matches last longer than others, and that these matches do not fall into the former category. After multiple close calls in which the fire creeps a little too close to your fingertips, you will buy a red plastic lighter from the dollar store and allow it to mar the beauty of your Shabbos table by leaving it next to your candlesticks and your pile of burnt matches.

Household Supplies

An addendum is necessary for the not-so-classy gifts: a broom, tissues, a bucket for the mop, a clock for the kitchen, and cleaning supplies for the bathroom. Though they might not spark the same energy as the Lucite and silver, there’s nothing like sponges for your kitchen sink, steel wool to scrub burnt pots, a Costco gift card, or a laundry basket to keep clothes in until they get folded. If the gift-giver feels that they’re not classy enough, they can wrap the tissue box in silver wrapping paper so you’ll be fooled into thinking it’s another salad bowl.

Once you are done sorting through all your gifts, you may be left with a few that just aren’t the greatest fit. You emerge from the local silver store with $414.86 on credit. With the price of silver these days, you can’t buy much, but you have hopes that one day, the price of silver will go down… or that you’ll receive enough additional gifts to afford that second set of china that matches your salad bowls.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 941)