Bob, hanging out

It being New Year's Day, I surveyed the Christmas tree to determine whether or not today would be a good day to return its adornments to their respective storage tubs and pack it away in its unceremonious box for another 11.5 months. The decorations on the tree are an eclectic collection of memories from four childhoods, souvenirs of Christmases past, hand-made decorations from friends and relatives, hand made decorations from the kids, and various flotsom and jetsom from the past 30-odd years of familyhood. But by far the strangest decoration on the tree is Bob.

Bob is a rubber dinosaur with spring-loaded pinchy arms that grip. He actually looks more like a benign Godzilla than a dinosaur. Bob came into our lives about 23 Christmases ago. We were making a Christmas trip to the zoo; son Dan was about 3 or almost 4. When we piled out of the car, dan stood in the parking lot, looked down and between his feet was a green rubber dinosaur. Without missing a beat, he reached down, pikced it up and said, "Oh, Bob!" And Bob is has been ever since.

We brought Bob home with us, took photos of each other with Bob gripping our noses; and, at the end of the day, Dan insisted that Bob be hung on, or more accurately, grip a limb of the Christmas tree. At tear-down, Bob was packed away with the other ornaments and lights, to be brought out each year and clipped back on that year's tree.

When we decorate the tree each year, there are certain ornaments that cause more excitement than others - the Christmas blob, popsicle stick ballerina, the dork angel, the teacher's bell from Tyler Wetlauffer - but the strangest by far is Bob.