We were all probably shocked about the recent story of the British school teacher who was jailed by Sudan and faced a punishment of 40 lashes for allowing her students there to name a teddy bear Muhammad.

At the private Unity High School in this Muslim country, Gillian Gibbons ran a teddy bear project for her class of 7-year-olds. She had a student bring in a teddy bear then asked her pupils to vote on a name for it. They chose Muhammad, a common name among Muslim men.

The students took the bear home individually to write diary entries on it, which were then compiled in a book with the bear's picture on it and the title "My Name is Muhammad."

This is a common project in British schools, but apparently not those in this country governed by Islamic Sharia law. Hardline clerics denounced Ms. Gibbons, saying she intentionally aimed to insult Islam. Fortunately, international outrage over the action prompted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to pardon Ms. Gibbons last week and she flew safely home to England.

It's hard to believe the teddy bear, which turns 104-years-old this year, could be the focus of such a nasty controversy, particularly this time of year. Even though high-tech gifts are the must-haves and toddlers have gone digital, the teddy bear still manages to be front and center during the Christmas season.

Bears come out of hiding for the holidays, with street vendors dressing them in Steeler sweaters, caps and mufflers. They reign at S.W. Randall toy stores and just about anywhere toys for children are carried, even though adults, like myself, are easily charmed, reminded as we are of our childhoods and our children.

At Articulation on Ellsworth Avenue in Shadyside, the bear can be a set of weighted leather bookends for $140, a cookie jar for $70, a large gold ornament or a book, "The Legend of the Teddy Bear."

The cuddly kind are the best.

The Gift Registry on Northumberland Avenue in Squirrel Hill, carries fashionably dressed Bearington bears and has a huge plush bear on display I want to take home, but he's much bigger than a bread box and he costs $100.

Did you know the first bear Morris Michtom (he later developed the Ideal Toy Co.) created for a Brooklyn store window was sent to President Teddy Roosevelt?

The bear came into prominence due to a 1902 hunting incident involving the president. It seems he wanted to bag a bear but when the animal, seemingly lame and lean, was run down by hunting dogs -- an easy target -- the president could not pull the trigger. He was teased ever-after and the so-called "Roosevelt Bear" turned up on postcards, buttons etc., and was also the subject for many a political cartoonist. So goes the story.

His compassion would only have made me vote for him, had I been alive back then.

Mr. Michtom received permission from the president to call the toy animal Teddy Bear, which started the Ideal empire in 1903. The first bear, supposedly stitched together by his wife, sold for $1.50.

In 1978, when he was 75 years young, the teddy bear was honored and viewed in a small display case at The Smithsonian.

On his 78th birthday, in 1981, teddy was sent to millions of homes, gracing letters and packages as a postage stamp. His image is also on one of this year's holiday stamps.

Time has literally "eaten away" the yellow plush of my son's first teddy but I still have him laid to rest in a box in my attic. I can still see my son flying across the front lawn swinging his teddy above his head on his way to a sleep-over at a neighbor's house. That was 30 years ago, when he was 6.

Memories are made of this.

I hope this incident in Sudan will pass so we can focus on teddy bears not as a symbol of brutality and oppression, but as simply sweet cuddly companions that bring most of us pleasant memories.