Each month, Bunny shares with you episodes from her life. These vignettes first appear in blogs and are collected here.
Vignette 1 (first published 30 April 2026)
Kitschmas Memories – 2012
As children we had those bubbles with a snowy scene inside. You would shake them, and glitter would fall like snow on the quaint plastic towns. They were just small enough to fit into one hand. But not this one. This takes two hands. The bubble is circular and looks more like a clairvoyant’s crystal ball than a child’s toy. This is one of those pricey gifts for grownups which infantizes them.
Every December I place it on a corner of a windowsill partially covered by a curtain. It’s there for a passing glance. To gaze at it for too long makes me morose.
The scene is of downtown Chicago with its famous buildings cramped together as if on the same city block, which of course, they are not. The Chicago River snakes along a couple of metal bridges crossing the turquoise painted waterway. One of the bridges has a tiny commuter train on it. If I examine it with my reading glasses, I can just make out the Chicago Transit Authority logo.
When you lift this glass globe with its heavy ceramic base and flip it over, there’s a wind-up key. A couple of good turns and the music box tingles with ‘My Kind of Town.’
This adult toy was a present from my sister from whom I have been estranged for over twelve years. She always sent her siblings interesting and expensive Christmas gifts. Receiving them made me smile no matter how frivolous they were. I would think in those moments that she’s not so bad after all.
Sometimes I wonder if her Chicago-themed Christmas presents were her way of making me nostalgic for the city I left over 30 years ago. Were the Chicago Cubs porcelain coasters, Chicago silver bells and a stuffed lion from the Art Institute of Chicago all about trying to make me regret having left? This reasoning only works if we remembered our childhood in the same way.
Or was she flaunting her money, reminding me of the wealth she married into? She’s always been competitive that way. Whereas such things mean nothing to me.
I don’t miss receiving these gifts from her. And I don’t know why I take the snow bubble out of its box every year.
But I do. This toy that isn’t really a toy.
The snow bubble is like a baby’s head, about the size of my sister’s head when she was a baby, and I was five.
I shake the snow bubble hard. It doesn’t scream like she did.
The little glitter flakes slowly descend on uncertain memories.
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Paola Trimarco 