Childhood Memories: Stuffed Animals-"Animal Kingdom" Part 2

Reading Olivia's post last week about playing with our stuffed animals when we were growing up really got me thinking. Probably one of my favorite memories of playing with our stuffed animals was when we all played together. Specifically, the thing I remember most is the "presentations" we did every time we got a new toy.

If any of you reading this are familiar with The Lion King and the opening scene of the film, that is what we based our introductions of our new animals on and we would hold up the new toy before the rest of the animals (suitably arranged). At some points it did look like the presentation in the movie because between the 3 of us my brother, sister and I had hundreds of stuffed animals. Every time we had a new toy we did this, we would bring in our stuffed animals, and dump them on the floor and set them up. Then I would put in my Lion King soundtrack and everything would go forward as we saw fit. Afterwards, we would settle into another story in continuation from something we had played previously, or some type of new storyline that my brother or sister had devised.

Our "stories" were never really organized (although sometimes I wanted them to be) but it only made sense to us.

My sister Olivia and I on our old deck playing in our playhouse, with Kiff the cat

We grew up, as children do and most of our stuffed animals were given away, although we still kept a few me, a few dogs and cats they been given as presents or toys I had since I was very young. Olivia still has quite a few as well, but now they're only either in storage, or in my case on a shelf in my apartment. My oldest stuffed animal is a cat I called Kiff, I've had her since I was 3 or 4, maybe longer; she was one of my first toys.

-Tori