Merry Christmas Hector

Merry Christmas everyone!!

I'm off to the big city of Milwaukee to celebrate Christmas with my family, but I am not traveling alone.

I am traveling with Hector, Hector Berlioz. What? You have no idea who Hector Berlioz is? No, he's not my boyfriend.  He was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts. He's dead. No it's not creepy. I don't actually have Hector Berlioz in the car with me. I just have a miniature bust of Hector. Still think that's weird? Well, I have a good reason. I swear!

It all started on a cold Christmas Eve who knows how many years ago (yeah so my memory's not the best). A family member browsed the selves of the department store (dollar store) looking for the perfect gift for our gift exchange and came upon Hector who was begging to be taken off the shelf (this reminds of the song Ladies Choice from Hairspray...now I'm going to have that song stuck in my head the rest of the day and it's not even Christmas music!). No one knows who actually brought Hector home and put those cheep sunglasses on him and wrapped him up for Christmas, but we don't know what we would do without him now.

This is Kinda what Hector looked like before we got
our hands on him. I will upload a picture of our Hector tomorrow

All of our family gatherings include Hector. Whoever has him will bring him and hide him just before they leave and wait and see how long it takes for them to find him hidden among the bookshelves or buckled in the backseat of their car or packed in their luggage.

Poor Hector has been through a ringer with us. He's been broken and glued several times over and we also like to paint him every now and then for special occasions. Right now he is painted red, white, and green, Christmas colors, to match the holiday season. His birth holiday (according to Wikipedia he was really born in December).

Every Christmas he gets re-wrapped and thrown into the pile of presents. We do dollar and white elephant gift exchanges, so he usually pops up when you least expect him. And you don't want to be caught with Hector. It's kinda like a Hector Hot Potato.

Love it. Who will end up with Hector this year? Where shall I hide him? Mwahahaha! (evil laugh)

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!