It's not cute. It's not easy. It's not banal. It's not simply pretty. The beautiful is not sweet or nice. It's not facile. And it's not unthreatening. Precious Moments figurines may soothe some deep-seated psychic loss of childhood in people whose parents weren't there for them, or for whom there is a need to over sentimentalize and extend into adulthood the innocence of childhood. But that just means that Precious Moments belongs in a therapist's lobby, not in the church.