It's no big deal, really. Carebear hit it on the head, they have no meaning or attached significance. People shove all sorts of things up their posteriors, they always have, and always will. Ask the average X-ray tech about it sometime, they keep the best films for their own collections and websites. For me, I'm not the evangelical or proselytizing type, chances are if they're inserting a baby Jesus doll into their nether regions, they're not particularly interested in the religious significance of it, and I certainly am not going to change their mind about it. So they go their way, I go mine, and come Judgement Time, one of us is in for a surprise. Who gets the last laugh then?
It's not just me. I don't get wrapped around the axle over figurines/icons/relics, nor do most Lutherans. I understand Catholics do, but as far as the Brand-X side of the house, our Catechism doesn't assign a whole lot of value to them, and actually warns of the dangers of idolatry. That's why you won't see too many altars at Lutheran churches with statues of Christ on the Cross. We don't need them, (we've all read the book, we know the story and how it ends, really!) they're not a means to grace, nor are they to be treated as though God were present in them. At best, icons and figurines *may* serve as a reminder to pray. They could also be treated as art, but offer no intrinsic promise therein. Other religions venerate icons, and they're more than welcome to do so. But to avoid crossing the line between veneration and idolatry, my particular after-church coffee-drinking and cookie-eating brand of religion saves themselves the hassle and just avoids it, not to the point of iconoclasm (ala', the Taliban defacing the Buddhas of Bamyan), but they make it well known that such things have little real value in the spiritual sense. Now, if somebody comes at me brandishing a baby Jesus buttplug with the intent of inserting it into my personal orifice, I'd be praying, too, and not for myself...
(Man, that's part of my pre-USAF history I'd almost forgotten. It came back to the frontal lobes pretty doggone quickly!)
