In light of many football "bowl's" (including the National Football League's oh-so-familiar Super Bowl) taking place, especially early in each calendar year, I came up with a bowl of my own—but it would be a big bowl of chocolate candy, primarily Hershey's Kisses. For ten years, from 1996 to 2005 (these specific years being based upon review of some of my old e-mail archives), I treated my workplace at that time (a CPA firm) to such a bowl on an annual basis, typically around Valentine's Day. I provided this largely for the fun of it. I cannot remember how many pounds of candy I put into the first bowl, but by "Cocoa Bush Bowl V" (yes, I used a Roman numeral system for reference, just like the NFL), the weight was up to 14 pounds (in reference to the Fourteenth of February, Valentine's Day).
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As the office where I worked downsized over those years, so did the employee participation/patronage. So, I ultimately discontinued this bowl after a roughly ten-year run—Cocoa Bush Bowl X, which took almost half of 2005 to be consumed, would be my last one for that era. I myself was getting older, and sitting at a desk nearly all day long certainly did not seem to be helpful to my metabolism.
Fast-forward to about ten years later—2015—where I would be working a much more active job, in a big-box, warehouse-style store employing a nicely large number of workers. With this arrangement, I have brought back the Cocoa Bush Bowl (might as well call this one "XI")—although rather belated with respect to Valentine's Day (at least in 2015)—this time to The Home Depot. Let's do this!
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Cocoa Bush Bowl XI ended up being a very well-received, "Depot-licious" treat. The milk chocolate Kisses—all 14 pounds—were gone in only about 30 hours!
In early February of 2016, I treated my Home Depot co-workers to the Cocoa Bush Bowl for the second time. All the Kisses (still 14 pounds) were gone in less than 24 hours!
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In late January of 2017, less than a week before the New England Patriots won their 5th Super Bowl Title (in number 51 of the "Big Football Game"), I unleashed my 3rd bowl at the "Big Orange Box" (number 13 overall for the "Big Chocolate Bowl"). This time the 14 pounds of Kisses lasted between 24 and 25 hours.
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Here are some pictures from Cocoa Bush Bowl XIV, which I presented at my Home Depot on President's Day in 2018.
If I remember correctly, I placed it in the break room roughly between 9:15 and 9:30 a.m. on that Monday morning. According to one of my fellow associates—Donna—this bowl had about 8 Kisses left around the time she came in the next day, which was at about 5:00 a.m. She told me that she took 4 of them at that point. My strong guess was that the rest of them were easily gone within the next 15 minutes, leading me to think that this year's bowl was cleaned out within 20 hours. When I myself swung by at about 11:00 that morning (that's less than 26 hours after I put the bowl down), there wasn't a single Kiss left.
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As I check back on some file information, it looks like I brought number XV rather more into the year, around mid-April, in 2019.
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I managed to get Cocoa Bush Bowl XVI into my workplace, around early February, before COVID-19 really took over our area later on in 2020.
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IT HAS FINALLY RETURNED!! The very first Cocoa Bush Bowl, this side of COVID-19! Just in time for Valentine's Day, 2023. PLUS...an extension of this bowl was presented a few weeks later, on March 11! This was rather a nice way to help make up for the COVID omissions of 2021 and 2022.
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This one was another later bowl, which I brought in around mid-April, in 2024. Eighteen, and I like it!
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