As a gift to each other, we stopped giving each other Christmas presents 20+ years ago. After all, we have the same tastes in clothing, objects, music & books. Now we buy each other gifts throughout the year, often for no reason at all. We do our birthdays & St. Valentine's Day. It just seemed a nice thing to take it easy when most people are at their craziest. Christmas is a very modest holiday at Post Apocalyptic Bohemia, but we do have our traditions.
More than 30 years ago, the Husband & I raided my parent’s storage cabinets in the basement of their beautiful Spanish style home in their South Hill neighborhood of Spokane. I knew there were treasures to be had & I was sure that they had not looked at their storage in a decade & they were sitting on some treasures that should be mine.
We took a few choice items that I was sure the folks would never miss, the coolest of which was my father’s doll from his early childhood- Baby Butch. Baby Butch was missing an arm & he was in pieces, but he was a great looking guy from the early 1930s & I loved him because he was my dad’s, & I liked the fact that my very butch father had a doll in his childhood that he loved so much that he carried him around for decades & many moves. It was an unusual choice, I actually abhor dolls, but I was very drawn to Baby Butch. So, he came to live with me & the Husband.
I knew for certain that my parents had not looked at the things in storage for a very long time. I was surprised when the phone call came a few days after the abduction of the doll. My mother wanted to know if I had taken the beloved Baby Butch. I admitted that I had & I was incredulous that they would have taken note of his gone missing, when they hadn’t looked at him for a decade. I also stated that he was living with us now, & that my father could have visitation rights. For 30 Christmases, Baby Butch has played the Baby Jesus in our annual crèche. The set up changes from year to year, but Baby Butch is always the star of our Christmas pageant. I never got to play Baby Jesus, or even Joseph... even a wise man. At church, in the 2nd grade, I did get to play 3rd ass to the left. The Story of My Life.
Baby Butch, Christmas 2011
More than 30 years ago, the Husband & I raided my parent’s storage cabinets in the basement of their beautiful Spanish style home in their South Hill neighborhood of Spokane. I knew there were treasures to be had & I was sure that they had not looked at their storage in a decade & they were sitting on some treasures that should be mine.
We took a few choice items that I was sure the folks would never miss, the coolest of which was my father’s doll from his early childhood- Baby Butch. Baby Butch was missing an arm & he was in pieces, but he was a great looking guy from the early 1930s & I loved him because he was my dad’s, & I liked the fact that my very butch father had a doll in his childhood that he loved so much that he carried him around for decades & many moves. It was an unusual choice, I actually abhor dolls, but I was very drawn to Baby Butch. So, he came to live with me & the Husband.
I knew for certain that my parents had not looked at the things in storage for a very long time. I was surprised when the phone call came a few days after the abduction of the doll. My mother wanted to know if I had taken the beloved Baby Butch. I admitted that I had & I was incredulous that they would have taken note of his gone missing, when they hadn’t looked at him for a decade. I also stated that he was living with us now, & that my father could have visitation rights. For 30 Christmases, Baby Butch has played the Baby Jesus in our annual crèche. The set up changes from year to year, but Baby Butch is always the star of our Christmas pageant. I never got to play Baby Jesus, or even Joseph... even a wise man. At church, in the 2nd grade, I did get to play 3rd ass to the left. The Story of My Life.
Baby Butch, Christmas 2010
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