A gift for your Friday night dinner host? Shop the Christmas aisle!

If you’re going to a friend for Friday night dinner this evening I’m fairly sure I know what you’ll be taking your host as a thank-you gift. A box of Bendicks or a bottle of kosher Cabinet Sauvignon or Merlot, yes? Or, if you’re feeling especially uninspired, a bunch of supermarket mixed blooms.

Come on, aren’t you just a bit tired of both giving and receiving these Friday night dinner gift staples? I mean, how many boxes of Green & Black’s can one household stockpile? And it’s not just Jews who are feeling reluctantly predictable on the present front. According to the latest Waitrose Food and Drink Report, the nation as a whole is sick and tired of turning up to dinner parties clutching a bottle of hackneyed Merlot.

Yes, I know there are other FND options. You could offer to make a dish as a contribution to the meal. (My personal idea of hell, since this is supposed to be a night off.) Or maybe your host says “no thank-you” to gifts, but “yes please” to a charity donations. But even if you agree to the latter, and it’s a good thing to do, many of us still find it hard to arrive at someone’s home empty-handed.

So here is your solution: stocking fillers!  That’s right, forget those over-priced boxes of kosher strawberry creams and head for the tinsel-wreathed wonderland that is the supermarket Christmas aisle.

Hear me out, please. This past week alone I have bought some Pomegranate scented candles, a Baileys Irish Cream gift set – complete with mug and mini whisk – and even a Cadbury’s Santa for a chocoholic pal.

And as for Friday night dinner gifts in the coming weeks, I have my eye on some saucy board games, you know, the kind which summon the spirit of Benny Hill, a make-up gift set that will give you “mistletoe friendly lips” and a Coca-Cola truck money tin complete with glass and bottle opener.

Of course, when buying Friday night dinner gifts for the more observant Jewish host and hostess there are some caveats. Some of the foodie options may not be kosher so check the ingredients on those seasoned nuts or a presentation of stuffed dates. Consider too the time of day that you will be arriving with your present since some options may be muktzeh, items that can’t be touched on Shabbat. This includes the illuminated tea caddy on my to-give list, which I shall be delivering before Shabbat comes in.

In addition to the priceless look on your host’s face as you hand over a bottle of bubble bath that plays Jingle Bells, there are other advantages to Christmas shopping for Shabbat gifts. They tend to give more value for money since although seasonal, the items aren’t slapped with a mark-up for being kosher. It’s also highly unlikely you’ll be buying the same thing as any other guest.

And there is what we shall call the spiritual aspect of all this. Buying what has been marketed as a Christmas gift for someone who is Jewish is a nice example of what unites rather than divides us. Many Jews may not celebrate Christmas but, as lookers-on, we can still revel in all the sparkle. I, for one, comb through recipes for tangy trifles and brandy butter, adore the Christmas markets in my home town of Manchester and get a warm feeling when I hear Paul McCartney singing Wonderful Christmastime on the wireless. (Truthfully, anything sung by Macca gives me a warm feeling. But you get the point.)

I have not time for the po-faced PC brigade who think Merry Christmas should be cancelled or rebadged as “happy holidays”. I love pressing my nose against the (frosted) glass and watching all festivities unravel. Buying a set of white chocolate reindeers for a friend who has slaved over the roast chicken allows me to buy into this. Better still, they can nosh it by themselves rather than feeling obliged to serve it on the night, as people tend to with wine or parve mints.

And in case you were wondering, yes, I take a similar view of things when it comes to Easter. Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut eggs are insanely good: all those juicy raisins studding that thick chocolate shell! What an excellent Shabbat gift.

So, if you’ve been invited to Friday night dinner over the next few weeks, you now have an array of gift options. There’s just one I forgot to tell you about. This fabulous thing called the chocolate advent calendar...