2009 will be the year of the bull and so lots of atrocious figurines and stuffed toys and “piggy” banks and phone charms and keychains and hats and calendars are appearing all over town. There are whole kiosks devoted to selling these items.

The closest equivalent might actually be the gift card. A bull is the perfect present for the person you can’t think of anything to give. Except it’s much less practical. If you’re given, say, a bull stuffed animal that dances and sings in a tinny voice pretty much the only thing you can do with it is save it for a white elephant party, something they don’t even have here, as far as I know.