Walking for Christmas

Little Remy Applewood had a very eventful visit to the Faunavale Christmas Market. The Applewood family’s littlest member has always been sitting through his life – watching from the sidelines quite happily. I’m guessing you have some Sylvanian babies who only sit, or maybe only crawl – they can still be happy, active family members, obviously, but also, obviously, rather limited in their physical abilities. I was starting to be sad about Remy, and wishing he could stand, run, walk about on his own – and suspecting he was feeling the same way. And so I did some research and discovered that others have had the same thoughts…. and that there is a sort of solution.

I had a lot of misgivings and was honestly rather scared – but was greatly relieved by the number of online associates (ah, thank you FaceBook Group members!) who had done this often and successfully. Done what, you ask? By applying light and direct heat, you can soften the plastic enough to, um, take off Sylvanian’s heads and well, swap their bodies. It sounds awful, and both my husband and son keep calling me Sid (Toy Story reference!), but both my critters are fine and I now have an always sitting squirrel and little Remy is able to stand!

How To Switch Baby Heads:

Briefly, you need two critters with fur color as similar as possible. It was also stated by those same online associates that the very newest babies have a new design and this will not work with critters created from 2021 on – mine are both older. I used long tweezers to hold one by the body, while aiming a hair dryer at them, turning to get all sides. Testing the squishability until they were soft enough to carefully squeeze the head and pull off from the body. They cool down quickly, so I needed to heat up the heads again to apply them to the new body of choice.

Sorry for the lack of photos ‘in process’. I was rather nervous, performed the operation in my bathroom and also did not want to dwell on their in-between state very long! I am NOT like Sid. But I AM happy to have a little Remy who can be up and about… though his parents are already having second thoughts…

Remy really wanted a closer look at that red truck from the toy booth at the Christmas Market. His dad got distracted by picking out the best looking cookie, and his mom was trying to decide if she needed a poinsettia plant. Remy saw his chance to act, er, I mean, he decided not to bother them and investigate the truck all on his own.

“Minnie, Minnie – look at our boy!” Michael Applewood excitedly got his wife’s attention after seeing Remy out of the corner of his eye. They both looked on in happy shock as their little son let go and toddled from his stroller toward the bright red truck.

They yelled for their daughter Geri, who’d was nearby and dressed up for the children’s Christmas Concert. After much laughing, hugging and exclaiming over what a Big Boy Remy was now, it was agreed he could keep the special red truck.

Such a momentous event, and at such a special time of year. Minerva and Michael are so proud of their little Remy, while also having a discussion about needing to keep a better eye on him in the future!