Hanukkah begins Sunday evening. With Christmas close behind, and all the buying of presents that both holidays demand.
Let’s not mince words: giving gifts is hard. Part mind-reading, part scavenger hunt, part potlatch. Even when you know exactly what to get, and have time to prepare.
Maybe I should just tell the story.
Last year, when I found out that I would be a grandfather, my very first thought was about a present. I hung up the phone and went directly onto the Steiff website.
Steiff is a German toy company, founded in 1880, offering all the soft cute animals you’d expect. But Steiff also has a tradition of hard mohair animals that, in an astounding mercy of time’s grindstone, are still made in Germany. Needless to say, they cost a lot.
My connection to Steiff came about because of a scientific conference in Germany in 1962. My father, a nuclear physicist with NASA, went to present a paper. He saw these gorgeous Steiff animals in a shop. The dollar must have been very strong. He bought a turtle and an elephant, a lobster and a giraffe… plus a lion, squirrel, various birds — so many toys he also bought a case to carry them back.
But that isn’t the lovely part. The lovely part, according to family lore, is when he gets home from his overseas trip, he opens the case, displaying its contents, and tells my sister, then 4, to take what she wants, and her toddling brother can have the rest. My sister surveys the menagerie and bursts into tears.
“Didn’t they have any dollies?” she wails. She wanted a Chatty Cathy, or whatever.
Maybe that story isn’t much, as far as family traditions go. But it is what I have, and I clung to it. The day my oldest boy was born, when my wife beeped me to tell me to get home now and whisk her to the hospital, I was in FAO Schwarz on Michigan Avenue, examining a little Steiff dog that ended up in his crib. Both boys got Steiff teddy bears when young.
That brings us to 2025, and the new generation. Should be easy, right? Jump on the Steiff web site, find a suitable bear, deploy the credit card, trying not to wince. I began browsing, and encountered a rude surprise:
“CAUTION! This product is not a toy and is intended for adult collectors only.”
What? When did THAT happen? I appealed to Steiff, telling them I was “surprised to learn that [their mohair bears] are not considered toys, and should not be given to children. This is news to me, and not good news… Are the bears dangerous?”
Their lengthy answer boiled down to two concerns.
First: “Design & Safety — Certainly, wool-based mohair is still considered a safe material. But many of the mohair designs in our present assortment include elaborate accessories or features which were chosen to appeal to adult fans of the Steiff brand. These items sometimes include small, detachable parts (such as beads, crystals, glass eyes, cords, ribbons, etc.) which might not be considered safe for small children as they could be potential choking hazards.”
Second: “Convenience & Aesthetics — Though a lush and beautiful material, mohair, like other wool products, is not typically machine washable. This is a major concern for today’s parents. Mohair shrinks, and can lose its luster, texture, and color after washing. In this sense, mohair does not meet our own, internally defined standards for aesthetic quality and practical convenience.”
Giving me a choice: I could devolve to their washable, polyester bears that have the additional advantage of costing a sixth as much. Still Steiffs. Or stick with the mohair tradition, one of the few I’ve got.
What would you do? Safety has taken the place of religion as prompt to fanaticism. I knew if I consulted with my daughter-in-law, we would err on the side of caution. I decided to make the call myself.
I settled on Emilia, a bear without ribbons or eyeglasses or external chokeables. I considered trying to pluck out her eyes, as a test, but decided here to trust that the German toymakers had affixed them firmly enough. My granddaughter plays with toys that have far more dubious provenance. The bear could be banished to a high shelf if her owner’s parents decide she is an intolerable risk.
Emilia was a big hit. The child was unharmed. Her father ran upstairs and retrieved his Steiffs and we chatted about the excellence of their workmanship.
During their Thanksgiving visit, we took my granddaughter to meet the man who started all this by buying those fancy animals in Germany in 1962. I can say with certainty that the experience was equally memorable for both baby and great-grandfather.