Monday is brought to you by: Knuffels!
May. 11th, 2020 11:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
highlyeccentric in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
covidcoffeecornerOne of my favourite non-english words is the dutch Knuffel, which I'm told means both cuddle and cuddly-toy.
Here is one of my greatest investments since I moved back to Switzerland: a stuffed toy Bernese Mountain Dog, who has eventually acquired the name Othon. I bought him when my immediate moving-countries financial aargh cleared up, because I had coveted ones like him in the airport as I was departing in 2018, but couldn't justify buying more knuffels at the time, what with wildly unstable career / housing / residency prospects. I didn't *expect* him to become a Quarantine Friend, but he has done a very good job.
(Lacking pets, I have to stage my own cute and/or hilarious tableaux with stuffed toys.)
This is Brown Bear, who is nearly as old as I am. His snazzy little jacket is newer: a few Christmases back I got my mother to make him a new outfit as - well, it was supposed to be my Christmas present, but since I got other presents as well, I mother recognises bear's status in the family and gave him his own present that year.
He spent a couple of years back at my parents' place, because I thought he was getting too old to be squished in suitcases. Of course, *not two days* after I left him at my parents' house in 2018, as I was preparing to fly back to Europe, someone notified me my my home town was cut off by bushfires. I held off until the immediate danger was passed, but subsequently made Dad promise that Brown Bear goes in any evacuation bags that might be packed! Turns out the next person to have to worry about that was me, living at home temporarily last year, in charge of the house and contents during the first 'Catastrophic Fire Danger' day since NSW instituted the rating. (This photo is from the day after, at which point I was comfortable leaving the house, but carrying a backpack with all my ID and all the family's prescriptions + bear any time I did.) Brown Bear is now safely back in Switzerland, where we are unlikely to suffer from wildfires, and stuffed bears at least are safe from pandemics.*
Do you still have your childhood stuffies? Do you acquire new ones? If you have kids, do you have a soft spot for any of their bears in particular (we found my brother's Best Bear cleaning out a cupboard, and my mother definitely has a soft spot for him)? What about dolls? I had a few dolls, but only one I really loved, and I haven't stayed attached to them like I did the stuffed toys.
*I worry for people for whom a comfort stuffie is a functional necessity for getting out and about, rather than an optional extra - bears pick up germs pretty easily, as any parent of toddlers knows, and washing them is Quite A Production.
Here is one of my greatest investments since I moved back to Switzerland: a stuffed toy Bernese Mountain Dog, who has eventually acquired the name Othon. I bought him when my immediate moving-countries financial aargh cleared up, because I had coveted ones like him in the airport as I was departing in 2018, but couldn't justify buying more knuffels at the time, what with wildly unstable career / housing / residency prospects. I didn't *expect* him to become a Quarantine Friend, but he has done a very good job.
(Lacking pets, I have to stage my own cute and/or hilarious tableaux with stuffed toys.)
This is Brown Bear, who is nearly as old as I am. His snazzy little jacket is newer: a few Christmases back I got my mother to make him a new outfit as - well, it was supposed to be my Christmas present, but since I got other presents as well, I mother recognises bear's status in the family and gave him his own present that year.
He spent a couple of years back at my parents' place, because I thought he was getting too old to be squished in suitcases. Of course, *not two days* after I left him at my parents' house in 2018, as I was preparing to fly back to Europe, someone notified me my my home town was cut off by bushfires. I held off until the immediate danger was passed, but subsequently made Dad promise that Brown Bear goes in any evacuation bags that might be packed! Turns out the next person to have to worry about that was me, living at home temporarily last year, in charge of the house and contents during the first 'Catastrophic Fire Danger' day since NSW instituted the rating. (This photo is from the day after, at which point I was comfortable leaving the house, but carrying a backpack with all my ID and all the family's prescriptions + bear any time I did.) Brown Bear is now safely back in Switzerland, where we are unlikely to suffer from wildfires, and stuffed bears at least are safe from pandemics.*
Do you still have your childhood stuffies? Do you acquire new ones? If you have kids, do you have a soft spot for any of their bears in particular (we found my brother's Best Bear cleaning out a cupboard, and my mother definitely has a soft spot for him)? What about dolls? I had a few dolls, but only one I really loved, and I haven't stayed attached to them like I did the stuffed toys.
*I worry for people for whom a comfort stuffie is a functional necessity for getting out and about, rather than an optional extra - bears pick up germs pretty easily, as any parent of toddlers knows, and washing them is Quite A Production.