Naming toys

I admit it. The first Christmas decoration is up. I didn't mean to. But I bought it this weekend at the Spirit of Christmas fair and because a) I just can't stomach the thought of fighting through the loft to find it's proper home among the other Christmas decor and b) it's only going to have come out again in a few weeks time, I decided that it could live on a random hook in the kitchen. Not really sure why the hook is there now I come to think of it. Note to self: are we missing a picture or calendar or utensil?

Hardly was the little rocking horse up then we decided he had to have a name. Perish the thought any inaminate toy/decoration in our house remain anonymous. Our favourites so far: Acorn (bit predictable), Harry (...the horse, or perhaps after the prince?), Dasher (quite apt for Christmas) or Baileys (after my favourite Christmas drink, or one of them anyway).

When Little Bean came along, we thought deciding on a name for her was tough enough. What we didn't realise was that there'd be countless bunnies, bears, crocodiles, giraffes, frogs, turtles, hedgehogs, dogs, ducks, pandas, kangaroos and pigs that would also require naming. Luckily some of them already came with names (thank heavens for Sophie the giraffe, Winnie-the-Pooh and Eeyore) and others were fairly easy (what else are you going to call a koala but Kylie?) but still we kept on running out of ideas.

After a while we cheated and defaulted to calling everything 'Mr' (Mr Bear, Mr Cow, Mr Crab etc) although after a while I thought this was not only a tad sexist but also potentially confusing - we had more than one Mr Sheep for instance. So we started asking people who'd given us the toys to give them a name - nothing like a bit of delegation to lighten the load... Ha - we thought, we've cracked it, as the competition hotted up to see who could come up with the most original name.

But of course it was never going to be that easy and trying to keep track of who was called Ralph, Lola and Rihanna (don't ask) became a bit of chore. So now I've decided that I'm taking a leaf out of the Harry Potter books and Little Bean's menagerie will now be 'they who shall not be named'. She's started pointing at everything in wonder and saying 'dey' anyway so no doubt she'll decide what she wants to call her bunnies and bears when the time comes. And that means I'm off the hook. Although the little rocking horse is decidedly not. See, more time for me to think up silly jokes. Tis the season, you see. Well, almost, anyway.
Now, who's going to play 'Pin the name on the horse' with me?