Gift Shop of Gratitude by Peter Lovenheim; Gildan Media LLC; (c) 2024; ISBN 97810722-506957; 186 pages including 60 lined pages for writing your own observations; $19.95.
SAN DIEGO — Imagine you are in a gift shop, any gift shop, and you are picking your way through the following 20 items: Playing Cards, Bobbleheads, Snow Globes, Coffee Mugs, Refrigerator Magnets, Scented Candles, Toy Animals, T-Shirts, Souvenir Spoons, Bookmarks, Baseball Caps, Music Boxes, Souvenir Pens; Jewelry; Shot Glasses; Key Chains; Jigsaw Puzzles; Ornaments, Tote Bags, and Postcards.
Author Lovenheim reflects on how the things and ideas that he cherishes in his life might be personalized by each of these gift shop items. He invites readers to do the same. After a brief essay on each souvenir type, including a little of their histories, he includes three lined pages for readers to jot down their own thoughts.
For Lovenheim, Playing Cards suggest a gallery of portraits of the people most influential in his life; bobbleheads might immortalize the people he puts on a pedestal; scented candles brings back favorite aromas such as a burning pile of leaves in Fall (now outlawed for reasons of air pollution) and a whiff of a relative’s pipe tobacco.
Although such memories are universal, Lovenheim includes insights from his own Jewish upbringing in this rich, yet easy-to-read narrative. His chapter on souvenir spoons, for example, observes that spoons “can also serve to remind us of something special to be grateful for: memorable meals shared with family and friends.” Among his memories are “any Sabbath dinner when my children were little. We’d light and bless the candles, the wine, the fresh challah bread (often homemade.)” Ornaments may include hamsas, “popular with people of many religions, including Jews and Muslims,” he writes.
Lovenheim equates shot glasses with a celebration of health, with such toasts as “Salud” in Spanish, “L’Chaim” in Hebrew, “Fisehatak” in Arabic, and Na zdrovie” in Russian. He writes that the shot glasses are “convenient reminders of something we’re all grateful for: “our health and those who help keep us well. These would include the doctors we see regularly, of course, but also surgeons, specialists, dentists, nurses, as well as therapists, pharmacists, nutritionists and trainers who keep us in shape.”
Tote bags make Lovenheim think of memories and heritage that people carry with them. He proclaims his gratefulness to his parents who “passed along to me 3,000-year-old Jewish traditions that anchor me, give my life meaning, and encourage me to explore and question…”
These happy little chapters remind us of the good things in our lives that sometimes we take for granted. The book about gift shop items is a gift in itself.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World.