Perpetual Ruminations

Keeblers Camping

A very good friend of ours sent us these little Keebler (gnome) figurines for us to set out on our patio table. Since my wife doesn't really care for gnomes, we decided to refer to them as dwarves, as in Snow White and her entourage.

We set them up after opening the gift, and an idea flooded my deranged mind. My wife has a small display shelf with little animal figurines, and there was a family of skunks on it. I, jokingly, took the skunk family and placed them around the dwarves.

She laughed and said, "I love it, they have to go with them. But, we need to put them on something so they don't fall or get lost.

I found a piece of wood in the garage and we set them up. My wife thought some green felt would make it look nicer, and maybe if I could cut the wood into a circle instead. I agreed a circle would work better, and the green felt would top it off. But, as we talked, another idea began to fester within my ever-active brain.

Soon, it manifest that we could add a napkin holder to the display. My wife thought it a great idea, and instead of keeping it on the patio, using it in the camper. So, we set about finding a better piece of wood for the base cutting it into a circle, and then making a napkin holder to attach to it.

We completed the work and she glued some green cloth to the base. We set up the figurines and added the salt and pepper shakers, but should we drill a place for them or not?  Using aromatic cedar, I feared the wood would splinter and split if I tried to drill out indents for the salt and pepper, but maybe we could use some votive candle holders and attach them to the napkin holder. She loved that idea and said she wanted to get some brass ones she had seen.

We still need to get them and add them to the holder, but that will have to wait until after we return from camping. For now, this is how our little project turned out. It's difficult to see in the photographs, but one elf is lying down, passed out with a skunk sniffing his wine bottle, another is sitting in a drunken stupor with a skunk climbing onto his leg, and the third is getting ready to relieve himself and sees a skunk right in front of him getting ready to spay.

When I set the holder up to take a photograph of it, I notice the box of Keebler wafer cones in the background and thought these "dwarves looked a bit like the Keebler elves with beards. So I set the box next to the holder and took a couple of photographs.

Now, they are no longer gnomes. They are no longer dwarves/ They are Keebler elves out camping and drinking. The beards are there because who shaves while out camping? Apparently, elves grow facial hair quite quickly.

This should be a camping trip they will long remember~