I love Snoopy in all of his many guises. But best of all is the Literary
Ace, sitting atop his doghouse with his typewriter, diligently tapping
away on those keys even though he knows full well in the back of his
mind that he’ll soon be getting another rejection slip. I own the book Snoopy’s Guide to the Writing Life,
so I have a good idea of just how frequently and thoroughly Snoopy’s
work has been rejected. But that doesn’t deter him. He’s industrious as
well as creative; one could say that all of his other personas are
outgrowths of his writerly ambitions. This beagle’s daydreams are epic,
and once in a while he takes the time to actually write them down,
though a bit always seems to get lost in the translation.
At
my college graduation party, I gave away goodie bags stamped with the
image of Snoopy on his typewriter. On my piano, I have a snowglobe with
Snoopy hard at work on his next novel. But the beginning of my Snoopy
the Writer collection was Hallmark’s Spotlight on Snoopy: Literary Ace
ornament, which came out in 2002. Spotlight on Snoopy is a series of
ornaments that started in 1998; we only have three, but I’d be tempted
to get the rest online sometime. It’s hard to go wrong with Snoopy. But
I’m glad to at least have my favorite.
Literary Ace Snoopy
comes in a box that is absurdly large in proportion to the ornament
itself. While Snoopy doesn’t measure more than two inches in any
direction, the box is five inches tall, three and a half inches wide and
two and a half inches deep. This leaves room for the large piece of
molded plastic in which to place Snoopy when Christmas is over. Still,
the size seems slightly misleading, though most Hallmark stores would
have had the ornament on display for examination. I usually think of
Hallmark boxes as being a deep red color, but Snoopy’s is bright blue,
with beige on the front and back. While the front features a picture of
the ornament, the back includes a descriptive verse: “Snoopy’s never at a
loss / for clever words to write. / His latest novel starts: ‘It was a
dark and stormy night.’”
In addition to the ornament, the box
contains a “memory card”. This has a picture of the ornament on the
front; on the back are “To” and “From” spots, along with several lines
under “Holiday Memory 2002”. If the giver were so inclined, he or she
could take the card out ahead of time and write a message in this space
before returning it to the box. Or the recipient could fill in this
portion after Christmas with a memory involving that person from the
celebration that just passed or perhaps an explanation of why this
ornament was probably chosen for them. There’s not a lot of space, just
five lines of an inch and three quarters. But it’s enough room to jot
something down, especially for those with small printing or handwriting.
If you have a lot of ornaments with memory cards, you might want to put
them in a special book or box instead of leaving them with the
ornaments; that way, you can peruse them all at the same time.
Snoopy is usually a fairly solitary writer, barring objections from the
likes of persnickety Lucy, but in this ornament, he has a friend to
supervise his activities. While Snoopy sits with his “hands” poised over
the keys, Woodstock perches on his left “foot”. Woodstock is bright
yellow and wears a red scarf and green earmuffs. His eyes are tiny flat
lines, and he has no mouth. Snoopy is all white, with the exception of
his eyes, which, like Woodstock’s, look more like eyebrows; his round
nose; and the outer portion of his floppy ears. There’s also a little
black spot at the base of his tail, and though it isn’t easily visible
when you look at him head-on, he is smiling. He wears a purple sweater, a
green scarf and, just to make the ornament extra-Christmassy, a red
Santa hat trimmed with white.
The typewriter is black with
black keys that don’t look as though they actually have numbers and
letters on them, though it’s difficult to see. On either side is a
silver knob, and the paper is halfway through the mechanism. It’s also
blank, which seems a bit odd; I would think that “It was a dark and
stormy night” would be there for all the world to see, but perhaps they
were afraid of water damage. The typewriter is entirely non-functional,
but that’s probably for the best; I could see the piece of paper easily
getting lost if it could be maneuvered back and forth.
While
my Captain Kirk and Captain Picard ornaments are so large as to be
unwieldy, Snoopy is in danger of getting swallowed up by the tree
because he’s so small. He hangs just fine, but I have to be careful to
put him in a prominent spot, lest I accidentally leave him dangling from
the branch when the tree goes out. He’s too big for a miniature tree,
of which we have a few, but he rests easily on a flat surface, so it
also works well to set him in front of the tree on the piano or the
table. Wherever he is, Literary Ace Snoopy is a welcome part of our
Christmas celebration.
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