Pink Whale Ornament

You can buy this whale ornament directly at chive.com — hand-blown glass in a pink no whale has ever been issued. My daughter Maren, whose seven-year-old drawings started this whole color philosophy, saw the finished piece and said it was about time. About time nature caught up, she meant. She's been waiting.

It's a secret santa standout — the color gets a reaction before anyone registers the animal. Maren watched one get unwrapped at a school exchange and reported that the room made a sound, her exact words, which is the metric she now applies to all gifts. This one makes the sound. Reliably.

It's for whoever picks their own palette without asking permission — the person who was told whales aren't pink and heard it as a dare. Maren defended pink whales at age seven against a table of adults and has never once walked it back, and she was right, and here's the proof. The proof hangs well.

It's hand-blown, hand-painted glass, the pink applied entirely by hand after the glass cools — nothing printed, nothing dipped. The shade took three test batches to look chosen rather than accidental. Maren reviewed all three test batches personally and rejected the first two without hesitation. Batch three matched her crayon. Case closed.

It measures 5.51 inches long, 2.36 wide, and 3.74 tall — genuinely big, built to anchor a lower branch. Maren gives hers the lowest, sturdiest branch and calls it the whale's territory, which the rest of the tree apparently respects. Nothing else hangs within a foot. The whale earned it.

Wrap it in tissue given the size, store it upright in a padded box, and keep pressure off the paint. Maren retires hers each January with a short ceremony she invented and refuses to describe, and the whale has emerged flawless three years running. The ceremony evidently works, whatever it involves. We don't ask.

More live at /collections/animal-christmas-ornaments — the full census of household creatures, all in hand-painted glass. Maren audits the page carefully each year for animals wearing colors nature never assigned them, which has been her one collecting criterion since age seven. The teal lion remains her white whale. So to speak.

It does not come in a gift box — it arrives in serious protective transit packaging, built for the journey rather than the moment. Maren approved, noting that a whale should travel in something sturdy, given the size of the cargo. Wrapping falls to you if it's a gift. She recommends pink paper. Obviously.