Prelude to Christmas

I have a husband that LOVES Christmas. I don't think you understand what I mean by love. He just turned 28 and when he sees something Christmassy, his eyes light up with that same glow that a 5 year old gets when he sees all the presents under the tree. I am still not explaining it well. His face actually looks like a little boy... I can see exactly what his mother saw when he was a little kid. I love this about him and I hope he never loses it. I want to be 65 years old watching A Charlie Brown Christmas and still see that 5 year old when I look at him. It is a big part of why we work so well together. I would have to have a husband that can still see things through his 5 year old eyes to put up with me drawing cartoon veggies and meats all the time and getting excited about making them into toys. One more example: he has a tattoo of Charlie Brown holding his Christmas tree on his bicep. The face Charlie is making expresses exactly how Jesse feels at Christmas. He got it in September, not a winter month. I told him he needed to wait at least a year, and then do it in a hotter month to see if he wanted a Christmas tattoo out of season.

My husband, Jesse, sees Halloween and Thanksgiving as pre-Christmas. Warm up holidays to get you ready for the explosive overload of happiness that Christmas will inevitably entail. I think that if there weren't two holidays right before Christmas to exercise his holiday muscles, that the excitement overload might just cause Jesse to explode of happiness by Christmas Eve. My role in the holiday excitement is to cater to Jesse's holiday whims at an instant. This means random decorating, craft nights, and last minute (and sometime late night) seasonal baking. Last year our dining room table was covered with a giant Halloween paper mache head, and paper mache mess for at least 3 weeks. We ate in front of the T.V. for that time. My goal this year is cleaner projects. :) I love baking (I went to culinary school before all of this), crafting, and seeing my husband at his happiest, so this is a great time for me too.

Every time I go to Target or Walmart, I have to look at the pet stuff. I never had a dog or cat growing up. My mom was a farm girl and sees animals as outside only. I understand where she is coming from, but I got a hairless cat about 5 months after I moved out, and a dog about a year after moving out. I think I am using up years of pent pet stuff excitement. Even though I make toys, I somehow almost walk out with a seasonal toy every time they are available. I stop myself usually not because I could make one, but because I have a bazillion dog toys already in a playtime basket for my dog. Never had it occurred to me to make seasonal toys until a couple days ago! The doodle pad was busted out very quickly and the same night I had made two different Halloween toys.

First was a Frankenstein's monster style toy. What better for a green monster but spoiled bacon turned green?! I loved it so much. Baron Von Bacon is the original bacon dog toy. His story goes that he found his wife in bed with a cocktail weenie and has been seeking revenge ever since. Baron Von Bacon's Monster is the reason the Baroness strayed. The Baron was too consumed with his passion for creating life from the dead... the dead bacon that is. Jesse saw him and immediately went to work on a set design. While I sewed away on my next Halloween dog toy, he was building. When he showed me what he created, I was in love!! He now HAS to do this for all of my dog toys. I try to give all of my creations a story that gives them personality and another reason to love them. The set made my story that much more real.


Next was a mummy. I decided to do make them cohesive and make them all Baron Von Bacon based toys. Besides some major sewing machine malfunctions, it went just as planned. The name is too hard to say. King Tutenbacon shows the Baron's royal blood lines. I am trying to get Jesse to build me a set with the tomb and little jars with the mummies' organs preserved in them.

I have one more Halloween toy in the works. It is a vampire bacon. It is half completed as of now. I think it will fit in well with the other two. For now, my goal is to have 3 different seasonal toys per holiday. Baron Von Bacon, Baron Von Bacon's Monster, and King Tutenbacon are on sale on Lyonesque as of now (as well as others). The vampire bacon should be up soon.