The Tiny Bunny Band Who Came for Christmas

When my mother went to Heaven last fall, she left behind a great many things, including the tiny bunny band. These are vintage wooden toys that first belonged to my mom's mother, Grammy Carvell. They represent a bit of family history.

These festive bunnies, each about an inch tall, are celebrating Christmas at OUR house this year, and forever more. I searched the Internet and it says these are Easter toys, made in Japan. I found a complete set, in the original packaging, selling for $50 online.

My mom used to get the set of 12 bunnies out sometimes to display them. Technically, I guess for Easter, though they sometimes showed up for Christmas, as well. If you look at them closely, you can see that each rabbit holds a different instrument. There's nothing on them that specifies a particular holiday, so they could easily be displayed all year long.

I remember a few years back, when my was mother trying to decide how best to "pass them down" to us kids. What would be fair? There are 12 rabbits. There were 6 of us kids. Mathematically, that works out to 2 bunnies per child. That would have been FAIR, but it wouldn't have been RIGHT. We 6 kids all nixed the plan to split them; of course, we agreed that the band should stay together!

I almost laughed out loud when I saw the note that my mother had left on the box she stored them in, which was sitting atop that blue and white round metal tray that you see in the photo. The writing seemed dark, firm, and almost threatening in tone. Here is the text of that note, in its entirety:

Belonged to Mother 5-19-2000.
4-1-91 Wooden "Bunny Band"
Easter decorations
Do not sell!
Keep in Family

And so it is that the tiny bunny band has ended up, in its entirety, at our house. I've got a Christmas tree that is the perfect size for this venue and so I can assure you of festive accommodations for the entire crew. 

Welcome, welcome, let the music commence, and happy Christmas to you!

Our soundtrack song is Let's Stay Together, from Pat Benatar's 1988 album Wide Awake in Dreamland, which is a particular favorite of mine. There's another song on there I'd like to toss in because it seems relevant, and makes a nice partner song to this story: One Love (Song of the Lion). One of its verses appears below:

One day every eye will see truth before the light
Let it be done right now
One day every voice will speak strong against the night
Let us be one right now
So let it be