2025 in Review

 Well, another year has gone by, and it was definitely a year.  Some interesting things happened in the ABBA world, like ABBA Voyage celebrating it's 3rd anniversary and them updating the setlist for the first time by removing some songs and adding new ones.  Frida and Benny were both present for the anniversary celebrations, and seeing the ABBA members is always such a treat.

Bjorn and Frida both celebrated their 80th birthdays this year, an amazing milestone!!  

We lost a few of ABBA's close friends and associates this year - Michael B. Tretow, Karin Glenmark, Jan Kling.  It has been absolutely heartbreaking and devastating to see so many important names pass away over the years, so many people who helped shape and played important roles in ABBA's story.  

One thing that I've been quite excited for is the rumors going around that ABBA Voyage might be building a venue in Hell's Kitchen, New York.  While I've only ever been in New York one time in my life and that was almost 20 years ago, in theory getting my scared-of-traveling-self to New York is doable and even more doable than traveling to the UK.  

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Personally, this year's been full of ups and downs.  I unfortunately lost a lot of motivation for my YouTube channel, mostly due to burnout and lack of inspiration, but at the same time, I've pretty much made a video on almost every topic I can think of.  People still actively watch my older videos, leave comments frequently, and they seem to bring people joy, so that's nice.  

The loss of my bird Darius really hit me hard. I know that every time I adopt an animal, that eventually they will pass away and it's going to hurt. I'd lost Skyler only two and half months before adopting Mordecai and Darius, so the fear of losing them was already on my mind from the day I adopted them.  I saw a post online that said that having a pet leaves you with so many of the most incredible days, followed by one of the worst days, and it couldn't be more accurate.   

I really wasn't prepared to lose Darius so soon.  He was only 5 years old, and I think reasonably healthy.  I weighed him and Mordecai every week, and I always closely monitored the two of them for any changes in behaviors and physical appearance.  They had routine vet care, and anytime I suspected something more serious was going on, I'd bring them to the vet.  I still don't fully know what happened to Darius, definitely something going on internally, and I can't help but worry that there were signs I missed, and if I had brought him to the vet sooner than I did, even though I brought him to the vet pretty quickly after I noticed something was wrong, maybe something more could have been done.  Now I'm constantly worrying myself looking for something wrong with Mordecai, as I'm worried that every little thing he does can be a sign that something's wrong.  But the vet was fairly certain that what Darius had was not contagious, and not to be morbid, but I think if it was contagious, I don't think Mordecai would still be here.  

In some ways the grief has been easier after losing Darius because I've had Mordecai still here to maintain a semblance of routine.  But watching Mordecai, a tiny little bird, have to navigate such big feelings has been rough as well. Grief has been hitting him really hard, and he has good days when he's happy and cheerful, and bad days when he just wants to sit on the roof of his cage and disassociate for hours. But I'm so glad we're able to work through this together, and I love him so so much.

I went to my third ever concert this year, and my first stadium show. I went to see the Jonas Brothers, performing in my home state which was really special, and... concerts a very loud and I think I start to disassociate and get too overwhelmed at concerts, and getting there was very stressful to me, but I think I'm glad I went.  Not sure I'd go to another, but I'm not saying I won't.

As usual, I also spent a lot of time with the outdoor animals.  I have really been enjoying being outside, all seasons, and this year I got to fulfill  another lifelong dream of befriending the squirrels.  Turns out they really like nuts, imagine that haha.  With squirrels being a lot bigger than chipmunks, their accidental bites hurt a little more than chipmunks, but I'm happy to say that they don't accidentally bite me as much anymore because we're good friends. I got to watch a lot of baby turkeys grow up this year as well as several mamas brought their babies through, and they're not scared of me which is so cool.  

I don't want to get my hopes up, but it would be really nice if 2026 would bring better and brighter things into my life right now. But, aside from my bird dying and my overall lack of creative motivation, the year was okay.  Not the best, and could definitely have been worse. 

Happy new year, everyone.

- Becky/ABBAFan456 

Happy 79th birthday, Benny!

 Today we wish a very, very happy 79th birthday to the man behind the music, Benny Andersson!

 

Happy 14th birthday, Benny Anderdoll

 14 years ago today, I put in the finishing stitches on my homemade Benny doll. :D

 

New ABBA The Museum Kimonos

 I was just browsing the ABBA the Museum website and happened to see that they've just remade the kimonos.  And I was pretty excited because, as stated in my lengthy post from August about the problems with ABBA the Museum's costumes, ABBA the Museum did not make an accurate kimono.  Now, I'm not trying to diss ABBA the Museum for attempting to sell ABBA costume replicas, because so few of those exist, but when the product is described as being a replica of the ABBA members' stage costumes, I expect to see a replica, not just something inspired by the kimonos.  And sadly, these kimonos are just as flawed as the first one.

The first issue is not with the costumes themselves, but with the item description, which is as follows:

This kimono is a replica of the stage costume worn by Frida during the Japan leg of the tour. Designed by Owe Sandström, the piece reflects a creative fusion of Japanese and Swedish aesthetics. Sandström chose the traditional Japanese kimono silhouette and adorned it with motifs from Swedish flora—specifically, the Columbine, a classic garden flower. 

(Obviously it says a different ABBA members' name per product description, I just copied the one for Frida's.  Everything else is the same.) 

Now, if you're familiar with ABBA's story, which I would assume ABBA the Museum would have to be because they are the official ABBA museum after all, you know that the Kimonos first debuted in 1976.  Not 100% certain on this, like I can't find a source for this other than my own brain, but I do believe the kimonos were created for the purpose of taking them to Japan, but ABBA didn't end up going to Japan until 1978.  Bjorn and Benny did end up wearing the now-two year old costumes during the short promotional trip, specifically for three of the performances (Knowing Me, Knowing You, The Name Of The Game, and If It Wasn't For The Nights), although Benny was oddly wearing Agnetha's kimono rather than his own.  

 The first official appearance of the Kimonos was in one of the commercials for Japanese Electronics Company, National, in August 1976.  And roughly a month later, the kimonos were worn during the performance of Why Did It Have To Be for the TV special, ABBA-Dabba-Doo.  The final time the ABBA members wore all four kimonos together was in November 1976, when they appeared on the French TV show Les Rendez-vous du Dimanche.  

The kimonos were not worn during the Japanese leg of the 1979/80 World Tour.  So I don't understand why they would say that in the product description,

Now onto the actual costumes themselves.

In the previous iterations of the Kimonos that ABBA the museum sold, they simply scanned in one design out of the 3-4 that appear on each ABBA members' costumes and repeated it in a couple spots on the kimonos.  The kimonos were also full-length, more accurate to traditional Japanese kimonos, but not accurate to how ABBA's costumes were designed.

This time, they have made shorter kimonos, more in line but not quite as short as ABBA's original Kimonos.  They've also scanned in more of the original designs, not just the one, and have made the costumes more accurate in color.  

They almost had me fooled that they'd made an accurate replica this time, however, yet again, the placement of the designs is wrong, again.

To compare, here is an updated chart featuring my drawings of the designs in the correct placement, and the new ABBA the Museum costumes.  (For some bonus fun, can you tell from where on the original kimonos they took the designs from???)  ((ALSO just a reminder - these drawings I did of the floral designs are not 1000% accurate because I had to piece them together myself using images of ABBA's kimonos))

Agnetha: 

  Frida:

 

Benny:

 

 

 

 

Bjorn:

 

 

 I'm just so baffled as to why they've done this, why they can't just put everything in the correct placement.  If they just looked at my charts, they would see how inaccurate they are, but they don't even have to use my charts because they have the actual original costumes right there on display in the museum to consult with.  I just don't understand.

 

 

 Now we know that I have beef with a lot of ABBA tribute bands, but why is it that some of their costumes are more accurate in terms of design placement than the ones sold at the ABBA museum???

 

  

PLEASE do better ABBA the museum, or at least don't list your costumes as replicas.  Please and thank you. <3

 

Somewhat related - I saw this shirt at the Polar Music store, and I think it's such a cute, but subtle way to wear an ABBA themed garment, featuring the design on collar of Frida's Waterloo Costume.  It may be ridiculously expensive, but it's super cute regardless.  If ABBA the Museum wanted to sell more ABBA-inspired clothes like this, I wouldn't have any complaints with that.

 

 Alright, rant over.  Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

 

Also, one nice thing about these new kimonos is the nice high quality scan of the design that's on the back left of Agnetha's sleeve that I unfortunately had to make up half the details for on my doll kimono because there were no high quality reference photos.  Unfortunately this means, oh the horrors, my doll costume is slightly inaccurate, but at least I can saw it's placed in the correct location lol)