This one is super sweet, but requires backstory and a sort of special dictionary. My little girl Valentalae has this Denmark thing.
It's not that she fetishizes everything to do with the country, its language, culture, and food. (Although that is true, but not like in a sketchy appropriating way.) Her love for Denmark is deep, earnest, and true. She feels the same way about it as I do about Asian culture and philosophy.
One of the Danish things she loves is a kind of red currant berry pudding called rødgrød.
I've had it actually. She's made it for me. It's quite delicious.
I also find the name simultaneously hard to pronounce and kind of silly. It's led to endless sorts of punning and wordplay between Vee and myself. We also share that love of what she calls wordfuckery with many of our friends.
It's rather a regular past time on the Big Little Podcast SLACK, a sort of private chat room we hang out in. (ps, if you want to chat there, just let me know!)
Another of Vee's funny made up words is to hallmark . Hallmarking is engaging in that sort of schmoopy, mawkish, unapologetically sentimental display of affection that makes people want to brush their teeth from how sugary it is.
We do a lot of hallmarking.
So months ago on the slack, Vee and I are trading quips and puns, discussing rødgrød, and weirdly, the telepathic gorilla super villain Gorilla Grodd, from The Flash.
I make this really bad pun about how if Grodd rode a skateboard he'd be a rad Grodd.
Everyone groaned loudly, including Vee.
But then one of our friends, Marky (heh, maybe Hallmarky would be more appropriate) messages me privately to let me know:
a) as part of his Lego collecting building expertise he knows about a Grodd Lego figurine AND a mini skateboard he could ride.
b) he was going to hunt then down (they're quite rare) and send them to me for her.
Which he did, and I hung onto and surprised Vee with for her birthday, as we lay in bed cuddling with Missy.
All the hallmarks!