What We've Shared

Not everyone understands or relates to Poppets, although there are a number of people at work who are intrigued by them I'm not sure that I'd gift Poppets randomly. They are cute but they sort of freaked my Rabbi out and I didn't even show her any of the "darker" ones. So it was with great joy and surprise that I found both my nuclear and extended family liked them. Some show all the signs of obsession that indicates incipient fandom and some sort of get it on the art level. So we were able to share some Poppets outside The Taunting. 

                 The little humbug flew to the east coast to be shared with my Sister. I love my Sister so much that it was more important to get one for her than for myself, so she owns the only humbug in the family. Isn't he cute?

My Nephew was also interested in things Poppety and along with some transforming magnetic Japanese ping-pong balls, we gave him a Shamrock Poppet to call his very own. It's what every Irish Jewish kid should have for Christmas!

Here is the Shamrock Poppet hanging out with Father Christmas making sure that he gets the stories straight. Father Christmas is really part of the Faerie and so are most Irishmen. 

As a member of the Magical Establishment, they are of course welcome at Grandma's house, especially when they are all attractively European about it. The Shamrock Poppet and the Nephew can now practice telling stories to each other.

Last but hardly least, is the Poppet Most Desired.

My six year old niece got the idea of Poppet right away, and some of the pictures posted in the blog have been taken with her creating the shots. But she's too little to use my very expensive camera and so she had to take pictures by proxy. The poppet my niece wanted more than any others (at least based on the oh-so-subtle hints) was a Question Dogma Poppet. We don't know why, but we do know it was a Perfectly Appropriate Aunt Gift. So if necessary, my Sister can just blame me for being a Bad Influence. It's OK, I have a really kick-ass outfit for when I'm being a Bad Influence.  But it was somehow wrong to give her a Poppet of her own, without the ability to take her own pictures - so what you see here is the picture she took with her very own Fisher Price - Damn-Near-Indestructible, Pink So-Her-Brother-Won't-Go-Near-It camera.

No, it's not very high quality. But it runs on batteries, it's digital, it's hers and she doesn't have to ask permission. Her mom has gotten her other Poppets to play with as well, I look forward to the pictures.

Of course there was also the Limited Edition Winter we gave my Perfectly Lovely but Perfectly  Normal Mother in Law. And the Gingerbread Poppet I gave Grandma. By the way - it ends up my Mother already had a house for Ginger.

So the contagion has been spread. My Sister actually called me to see if  I saw the new Steampunk Poppets, I had but not the newest listings - thanks to her I saw the newer pics. My Sister saw Steampunk Poppets and thought of me. . . . . that's so sweet. It's kind of cool to have something in common so organically. When I showed her Poppets she showed me the Blue Dog by George Rodrigue. She shared an artist that was meaningful to her the same way Lisa Snellings Clark's work affects me. 

It might possibly be the closest I ever felt to her, and we've been through some stuff together. But this was just sharing, possibly the freest most incidental sharing ever, but that's why it connected with me so much. Nothing was at stake, and I didn't have to explain because she just understood. 

I treasure that moment, because I don't try so hard to explain or justify myself to her anymore. And she can call me up now and tell me the history of voodoo dolls really being about healing and not curses. And we can both celebrate sprawling brass chandeliers.  It wasn't always the case and it's awesome (in the religious, "full of awe" sense of the term) to me that we have that sense of sharing now. That should be celebrated and treasured and ornamented with Poppets and Blue Dogs. So this year was Poppets and I'll see what I can do about the Blue Dogs in the future.