It's That Time of Year.
As the days grow shorter, the temperatures drop and snowflakes fill the air, you don’t need a calendar to tell that the Holiday Season is once again upon us. And though Old Saint Nick may be making his list and checking it twice, no matter how hard that jolly old elf works, it seems that you and I always have to pick up the slack.

At Bene Gifts we know that shopping for the just the right gift can be stressful. That’s why we try to provide you with a safe haven from the rush and tumble of the holiday madness. No matter which holiday you celebrate: Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or even (for George Constanza fans) Festivus, Bene Gifts is chock full of wonderful, one-of-a-kind treasures for everyone on your holiday list. That’s why you look to us as your exclusive source for distinctive, elegant gifts from Around the World: the kind of gifts you won’t find on every department store shelf.

Now let me share a Christmas story with you. My father was a plumber; a hard working, down-to-earth guy who smiled rarely and laughed even less. Don’t get me wrong, he was a happy man, you just couldn’t tell it from his face. When I was a kid, I used to give my dad the same present every Christmas: a bottle of Old Spice Aftershave, a pair of his favorite work socks and a box of red and white cotton handkerchiefs. It was the 50’s and that was the kind of gift a kid gave his dad in the 50’s.

Well, when I turned thirteen, I decided to give him something different, something special. I bought a school lunchbox and I spray-painted the box white. Then I stenciled “PLUMBER’S EMERGENCY KIT” in big red letters on the top of the lid. On the inside of the lid I pasted a Vargas pin-up girl that I had cut from an old magazine I’d found at our local barbershop (I was a precocious thirteen year-old) and coated it with polyurethane. I bought a two dollar cigar that came in a clear glass tube (an expensive cigar back then and, yes, a thirteen year-old could buy a cigar in those days), a shot glass (at my local 5 & 10 Cent store) and, because even during the Jurassic Period a thirteen year-old couldn’t buy liquor, I asked my mother to buy me one of those little airline-sized bottles of the whiskey I knew my father drank.

I riveted three metal clips to the bottom of the lunchbox (my school’s shop class was good for something) and attached the cigar, the whiskey bottle and the shot glass with the clips. Then I made a small laminated sign - like those DO NOT DISTURB signs on hotel room doors - that read “PLUMBER AT WORK!” and I put it in the box too.

On Christmas morning when my father opened his present, he stopped and looked up at me. What was this? Where were his socks? His handkerchiefs? Where was his aftershave? He looked down and read “PLUMBER’S EMERGENCY KIT” on the metal lunchbox lid and I swear he almost smiled. He opened the box, looked at the pin-up, and his almost-smile grew wider. Then he saw the cigar, the bottle of whiskey, the shot glass, and the sign… and he actually laughed out loud. My father, who usually made Calvin Coolidge look like The Joker, laughed out loud!

It was that laugh, that single, full-bodied laugh, that taught me the joy of giving something special to someone who was special to me. That’s the reason we created Bene Gifts: to provide you with a safe, convenient, on-line place to shop where you can always find something special for everyone in your life that’s special to you.

So from all of us at Bene Gifts, Happy Holidays!