Precious Moments: some call them adorable, others call them creepy. Sadly for collectors, everyone calls them worthless.1 But did you know they are godly? We’re not talking wholesome, we’re talking ZOMG they have their own special chapel dedicated entirely to enshrining tear-drop eyed children. Heh, don’t believe us? We have photomagraphic evidence!
This is the outside of the Precious Moments Chapel. Oh wait, that isn’t even the best part. This is the INSIDE:
Credit: The original photographer is unclear but we found this on the Visit Carthage website
Did you think…huh, that looks kinda like the Sistine Chapel? You are not wrong! The resemblance is intentional. Samuel Butcher, creator of the weird tear-drop eyed children was apparently inspired by Michelangelo’s masterpiece.2
If you starting to suspect that this chapel perhaps has a gift shop(pe) attached, you also would not be wrong! There is an 8,000 square foot gift shoppe! With Exclusive Figurines, that you can totally also buy from their website in case you can’t get to Carthage, Missouri.
If you have now moved on to believing that fine, some of these people are insane, but whatever, they are adorable little figurines. You would be right, most of the time. But proving that the intertubes will always show you things you don’t want to see, we bring you five moments no one wants to commemorate.
1. Are Precious Moments figurines children or adults?
Credit: Precious Moments
Because, it seems that perhaps the Precious Moment being commemorated here is that of barely pubescent pregnancy.
2. Also commemorated: death, in many forms.
Credit: Precious Moments
Now, we do not have children, nor have we lost a child, but we can not imagine a scenario where a figurine including a dead child would give us closure.
We do have cats. And we know that dead cats should not be immortalized in figurine format.
Credit: Precious Moments
For your more traditional death mourning, we have halo’ed lady at gravesite:
Credit: Precious Moments
3. After the disappointing bankruptcy of Enesco (the original distributor of Precious Moments) someone apparently had the bright idea to update the little figurines.
Credit: Hamilton Collection
Results were…mixed.
4. SAD BIRTHDAY WALRUS
Credit: Precious Moments
Why? Did you just give up, because you know 14 year olds do not care about their Precious Moments birthday train? Oh yeah. The Walrus is part of train. Collecting a figurine each year and whatnot.
5. There really aren’t any words for this one.
Credit: E Bay
Seriously. WTF are we commemorating here?
Featured Image: We are unsure of where this started, the watermark tells us to credit worth1000.com, but we found it on loft965.com
You may be thinking, why are these people so freakin’ worked up about Precious Moments? I haven’t even heard of Precious Moments for 10 freakin’ years. Well, it’s because the word we’d use to describe Precious Moments is craven. You know when we saw their new Star Trek figurine? When they promoted it on the heels of Leonard Nimoy’s death. So, regardless of whatever great motivations Samuel Butcher and Enesco started out with, their lofty goals are being undercut by a pretty tasteless marketing team. ↩
In fact, on some sites the paintings have been described as recreations, but we are going to give Butcher the benefit of the doubt and assume that is artistic license on behalf of the authors. ↩