Hanukkah and the bears

Once upon a time, there was a content creator in Second Life, who got it into her head to make cute little costumed bears, for the holidays. It started with Easter. a silly white bear, wearing a "bunny ears" headband. More holidays followed, like a flood. 4th of July, Mother's Day, Cinco de Mayo, and so on.. and then came Hanukkah.

I've always felt nervous about making items in recognition of a holiday that, truth be told, I never celebrated. My family was "non-denominational, mostly non-practicing, 'Christian'". We did any holiday that involved toys or food or candy. So Birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Halloween, 4th of July.. etc. I didn't grow up to be a devoutly religious person, and around the age of 13, I withdrew from Christianity entirely. It's only been in more recent years that any trappings of Christianity have returned to my spiritual life, and even then, only trappings.

But back to Second Life. One day in 2007, I found myself bored and playing with prims. And I made a rudimentary Menorah, and tested my scripting ability to make it light, sequentially. It turned out great, and I decided to give it out for free in my shop. People really liked it, not just for it's Hanukkah meaning, but also just to use as a general candelabra. Well, good for them.

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When Hanukkah came around in 2009, I decided to redesign the Menorah, and while I was at it, I decided to make a little "Hanukkah Bear".

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The revised Menorah was a huge hit, and the Hanukkah bear was certainly well received, and his tiny functional Menorah was a big hit too. When Hanukkah 2010 came around, I decided to try again with the Hanukkah Bear concept, and made a sister for the first bear.


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Not exactly the hugest of huge hits, but still not bad.  Of the two, the first is still my favourite.

Again I should reiterate that Hanukkah is not a holiday I celebrated growing up. So I am in "unfamiliar territory" in regards to doing these bears, which are indeed caricatures in some form.

All of my bears, with rare exception, are brown. I have done this because a) brown is a traditional color for a teddy bear, and b) having them always be brown insulates me from any appearance of "race" being involved in the imagery.

The Cinco de Mayo bears were a different story. Cinco de Mayo is something I have had near infinite contact with, all through my growing up years. And in every parade, there are seas of sombreros, and Mariachis and so on and so on. I knew I was safe dressing a bear in any of those costumes.

Offending people is something I've always been wary of.

And that really is the problem. At this point, I feel I've exhausted the "Hanukkah" blue and white theme, and the next logical step would be to start pulling from "traditional cultural dress" aka "costume". A Hasidic bear, with the traditional wide-brimmed hat and curls, holding a Menorah, would be adorable to my eyes... but as I venture further into "caricatures of culture" it quickly has the potential to become offensive to some, and I DEFINITELY don't want to do that.

I've never done a re-issue, as I've wanted the bears to remain fairly unique to their year of issue. So at this point, I'm considering skipping the Hanukkah bear this year, and instead adding a working dreidel to my pile of holiday freebies. (I already have a script for one).

But what do you think? Should I go for the Hasidic bear? Or have you got some other suggestions?