Astronaut on the Moon Ornament

We do, and this is the largest of them. The range runs to figures, craft and a few things nobody has satisfactorily identified, and this piece anchors the group because it is the only one with a base underneath it. My sister-in-law Bernadette bought hers in July. She plans ahead compulsively.

It usually does, and by a strange route. Every white elephant has one person who announces they do not care what they end up with, and this is the piece that person quietly declines to put back on the table. The declared indifference collapses inside a minute. Bernadette has been that person. She still has it.

Yes, and it is one of the few that works for a coworker you barely know, because liking space is close to universal and commits nobody to anything. There is no inside joke to get wrong. Bernadette gave one to a colleague she had spoken to four times and it landed considerably better than the card did. The card was fine.

Yes, blown glass throughout, hand-painted, with a gold visor and a base whose craters are pressed into the form before the glass sets. They are not painted shadows on a flat disc, which is the shortcut and looks exactly like one. Bernadette asked whether the craters were real. I said as real as the astronaut. She accepted that.

It stands 4.73 inches tall and 2.36 inches wide, which makes it one of the larger pieces here and noticeably top-heavy by design. Give it a branch that can hold the weight steady, because a figure standing on a base looks wrong the instant it starts to tilt. Bernadette hung hers and then stood back for some time. Then she moved it.

Support the figure and the base separately when you wrap it, because the join between them is the narrowest point and takes the strain if the piece gets held by the head. Then store it standing rather than lying down. Bernadette packs hers first, in September, in a box labeled for the purpose. The labeling is the part I question.

The rest of the space range, though not immediately next to it. This one wants clearance, and hanging it in a cluster of small craft and satellites turns the whole arrangement into traffic. Put the small ones a branch below and let the figure have its own airspace. Bernadette allocated an entire section of tree. Nobody argued.

It arrives in protective transit packaging sized for a tall, top-heavy piece, which is built for the journey rather than for presentation. You would want to rewrap it before handing it over to anybody. Bernadette rewraps everything she buys regardless of how it arrived, always forty minutes before she needs to leave. She is never late.