HI everyone, I hope your Christmas was wonderful and dollightful! I know that’s not a word, but since this is a dolly blog, I made it up! Did anyone get a new doll for Christmas? We always love to see the new ones, if you’d like to share! :o)
I guess you probably figured it out by now, but we didn’t put up the Christmas tree this year. It seems there was so much going on in the month of November and then with the kids coming, a memorial for our Pastor’s wife, Christmas Camp for the kids at church, Christmas Eve service… I just wanted to clean my house and spend time with them. I did bring down some decorations from upstairs, but kept it very simple. We had our Christmas 2 weeks ago when Rebecca and Karn were here, so today was pretty quiet. My hubby and I watched a few Christmas movies and relaxed.
I have a question from one of my ladies who wrote this in her comment, but it probably wasn’t seen by everyone… maybe someone can help her. I have no idea…
This is from Kitty Ann:
“Hello! I’ve just found your wonderful blog after being absent from the dolly scene for many a year. So happy to have brought out my girls again for play and sewing. I do have a question though about my Felicity (she has the ‘Made in Germany’ label. My Felicity has never had pincurls. I was given her as a gift many many years ago. I checked underneath the overlying hair and there is no evidence of there ever being pincurls. Have you ever heard of this happening at the factory level – they simply forgot to do the pincurls? I’ve often wondered.”
I received a nice email from Anne, (down in New Zealand) who sent LOTS of pictures to share with the Sofa Sisters! You can read what she said about it all below.
Hi Jeanne
I have loved seeing everyone’s lovely dolly photos the last few days, even though I haven’t commented.
When the grandchildren were small we used to take them to the Christmas Grotto at one of the churches in town. I think we assumed it was a church installation but no, it was a couple who used the church. There were obviously disadvantages to this arrangement, limited space being one and having to work around the church activities. Six years ago the couple decided it was getting beyond them and it sadly closed. This year their grown children begged them to start it up again. They were donated a marquee and a piece of ground and set up and opened last week. Sam’s 18 yr old and her very worldly wise almost 13yr old both wanted to come but the real magic was when the little ones saw it. Sam invited her new friend who has a two yr old and we went yesterday. Eddie dragged his mum around three times! (It cost to go in, just a small charge, but once in you could go through as many times as you like, or your children like!) I didn’t take any videos but there was always something moving in the displays, some more than others, (the elves packing dept was always a favourite.)
I took a lot of photos so will send as many as I can and you can use what you want or none if you prefer. I did spot a few AG dolls in the displays, lots of other dolls and lots of soft toys.
Have a wonderful time everyone by the time you start your celebrations we will be putting our feet up on Boxing day lol.
Meri Kirihimete
Anne
Here are her pictures…
It looks like maybe some American Girl dolls were helping with the wrapping in these next few pictures…
Thanks for the pictures, Anne… I loved the snowy animals pictures best, I think!
See everyone tomorrow…
Blessings, Jeanne
First of all, a very happy birthday to Barbara in SE Texas! I have another friend whose birthday is today , too, and then there was my uncle, who was born on Christmas Day.
Anne, thanks so much for sharing all the wonderful pictures. There’s certainly a lot to look at! I can understand why the kids might want to go thru several times!
We had a nice dinner over at Ron’s adult family, and I brought a cake I’d made for dessert.
The wonderful display’s brings back memories of all the Christmas windows in the department stores in Downtown St. Louis, Missouri, when I was a child. My Nana spotted a huge teddy bear 🧸 in one of the windows and wanted to buy it for me when I was almost two years old. Turns out it was the only one, but she could buy it on Christmas Eve if she really wanted it. She stayed after work at her beauty school and bought the huge bear, bringing it home late on Christmas Eve on the streetcar! She and the teddy bear were truly 🥰 loved and of course remembered each year for that Christmas Day ❤️ in 1942! Thanks, Anne, for sharing the pictures of the amazing displays.
Thanks for all the memories the blog inspires, Jeanne. It’s truly a gift to us all.
Hope everyone had a peaceful Christmas this year ❤️🎄🫎🎁🥰, Susette.
Absolutely love the bear story. What a great memory. 🙂
Love hearing your stories too, Joy. Merry Christmas!
Hi Susette, what a wonderful gift from your sweet Nana. Bringing it home on the streetcar must have been quite the sight,
He was so big that he probably did need a seat of his own! I enjoy your stories as well as Joy’s. 😊
Anne, what a wonderful display for children and everyone to see in this Christmas season! I always loved going to see mangers with live animals, and remember when my grandparents drove my sisters and I to some little filling station in the city that featured just that; Live animals and a manger! And, oh, what darling scenes you have to look at and ooh and ahh over! I certainly would go through it several times too! Like Jeanne, I love the snow scenes with the forest animals. So magical looking! Thank you for sending Jeanne all those wonderful pictures for us to see, and Jeanne for showing them to us, even if we are thousands of miles away!
This also reminds me of going downtown at Cnristmastime to see the store windows all decorated with wonderful scenes featuring trains and toys, plus my favorite, dolls!
So it’s Barbara’s birthday today, Happy Birthday to you, Barbara! It’s also my 57th wedding anniversary! What a ride it has been, two children later, plus 6 grandchildren!
And the funny thing that I have to add, is that this year, as Michael and I were exchanging anniversary cards, we both picked the exact same card!
Happy Birthday Barbara! And Linda I think picking the same card shows yours is a shared connection.
Anne, thank you so much for sharing the Christmas Grotto. What a wonderful reminder of Christmas meanings and stories. Happy holidays to all!
Thanks Jeanne and Anne for sharing the wondrous grotto photos. Quite amazing what that family was able to put together and a lot of work as well. Wow.
Happy Birthday to Barbara. Hope you have a delightful day. 🙂
Yesterday, I received a birdhouse and other person an orthopedic pillow as gifts. 🙂 No dollies here.
Today, it’s back to raking leaves as it looks like we have rain coming in the rest of the week.
And the new year will quickly be arriving. 🙂
What a wonderful Christmas tour for adults and children alike. All the scenes were really well done. The miniature village, the packaging of gifts and I especially liked the snowy forest with the animals. It looked so real- and the frozen icicles – how did they do that! Thank you Jeanne for showing us Anne’s pictures. Anne, it was nice of you to send them.
The scenes Anne shared with us remind me
also of a department store years ago- unfortunately the store is long gone and now something occupies the building. They always had similar Christmas scenes in their large windows. It was a treat to go downtown to see the displays. That was at Wolf and Dessaurs, Dept. store in Ft. Wayne, In. It was a regular Christmas event.
Jeanne, my husband and I didn’t put up a tree or too many other Christmas decorations like we normally do. I just put out the Nativity set and a small Christmas tree scene. My husband recently had knee surgery and is still recovering. We felt dragging out our many heavy Christmas bins was not good for either of us this year.
Still we had a very nice Christmas Day. Zooming with our kids and enjoying visiting and dinner with some very good friends.
Happy birthday to Barbara in SE Texas and Happy Anniversary to Linda and Michael!
Now… on to another year!
Two years ago (seems like yesterday), David had knee replacement surgery the first week of December so he was not really on his feet at Christmas time that year. Usually we go to Sean’s for Christmas but that year Sean and family came to us. I put up the village and the tree but nothing else because he couldn’t help me bring in the boxes and I thought the less I disturbed him with decorating the living room the better. I found I really didn’t miss all the other things but he always enjoyed the village and the tree so that’s what I did.
Thanks Jeanne for sharing your Christmas celebration memories with us. Anne, those photos are heartwarming. I especially love the forest scenes and the Nativity.
Happy Birthday Barbara! I hope you are not too tired to celebrate. I remember your recent post about your dream house in Bethlehem PA. Pennsylvania will tug at your heart strings. I often think of living my golden years in my homeland.
A Christmas doll will be arriving soon from France. She is a 10 inch Boneka Monday. I wish I had known this when your beautiful Christmas outfit was for auction. Sigh.
Kitty Ann, I have loved Felicity from her first release in 1991 and still have the first
Pleasant Company catalog offering her for sale. Over the years I have owned 10 Felicity’s spanning all the years she was sold first by Pleasant Company then by Mattel. I have not seen a Felicity that was originally made with out pin curls but I have seen many that ended up without them. I think as the curls softened they were incorporated into the longer hair. She is beautiful either way and those curls are difficult to maintain. I hope you continue to enjoy her.
I hope everyone is having a restful day after Christmas. I will spend the day taking all that red and green off my dolls. They will be redressed in their January blues. my favorite color for my birthday month. And, it is winter!
Blessings to all,
Debbie
Debbie, I’d love to see you dolls in their January blue wearing attire.
Happy Anniversary Linda! My hubby and I exchanged the same card two years ago, we had a great laugh and took a photo. Enjoy the celebration of your long marriage!
Thank you everyone for your comments. The photos don’t do the Grotto justice it truly is a magical place for little ones especially and amongst all the wonderful displays they never lose sight of the real reason for the season.
Christmas morning we went to my older son’s for breakfast, we see very little of him and his family these days so it was great to spend some time with all of them. Livvie is 23 and Jack 20 and they are both at university, Livvie in Auckland and Darren and Deborah both work in the business and Darren is in Auckland frequently as they have a branch of the business there too so it was great to catch up. We had Christmas dinner at home and Sam invited the friend and her two year old. I tried to sit outside but it got just too hot so ended up inside with the A/C on. According to the weather lady it got to 25C but I think it was considerably warmer on my deck.
I had a very restful day yesterday (Boxing Dasy for us) but Sam took the children to the Mall!!! It would have to be something really special for me to hit the Boxing Day sales! I stay home and do as little as possible. The temp dropped in the evening and we had rain so won’t have to water the plants today.
Have a happy New Year Everyone, glad you enjoyed my photos.
Dear Anne, thanks for sharing. I loved seeing the dolls, especially.
Jeanne, we didn’t do a full Christmas tree either, just put the second smaller tree up with lights and the Nativity below. Didn’t even get out all the German wooden Christmas decorations to set around. It didn’t matter though as they are in the antique Eastlake glass doored bookcase and can be seen the entire year.
Kitty Ann, Felicity is one of my absolute favorites. I have a 1991 West German girl and she has three pin curls on each side. I know the number could vary from between one to three and each side didn’t necessarily have the same. I also know they are very easy to lose in her hair. They are separate little curls glued on under her wig cap. I never mess with my doll’s hair beyond changing the ribbon. The German ones are stunning regardless.
Thank you so much for sharing the wonderful photos, Anne. The wooden pyramid is amazing. I love those!
The snowy animal scene is just beautiful and I also would love to know how the icicles were done.
The Nativity scene reminds me of going to see The Living Christmas Trees plays at a nearby church. There were sheep, a donkey, and camels. The play went from Christmas to Easter with another story woven in.
Happy Birthday, Barbara!! I hope your special day is fantastic. My Aunt Cecilia was born Dec. 26th. Happy Anniversary, Linda!! That is so sweet you both chose the same card.
Anne, thanks so much for sharing these wonderful, magical pictures. I know I would have to go around more than once. So much to see. I love seeing the wonder in a child’s eyes when they see things like this. I always loved the first year our children really noticed our Christmas tree. Such looks of awe on their faces. And they were pretty good about not touching things, but I always made sure to put ornaments on the bottom of the tree that would not break if little hands got curious. I also had a small nativity scene that they could touch and ask questions. Later on we bought a much bigger and nicer set that we put on the floor in front of the TV.
With my grandkids it was both the tree and the village. Jaiden still loves to play with the people and create scenarios. With Skyy it was the dog that went with the horse watering trough that fascinated him. It had a lower trough for a dog and one year Skyy took the dog and put it with a dollhouse set. When I put things up I noticed the dog was missing but it was nowhere to be found. Then one day I was cleaning the guest room where the dollhouse is (used to be Andi’s room) and there was the dog in with the dollhouse people. I guess he thought it was a stray and needed to be adopted.
I find I am doing less decorating every year. I used to have decorations everywhere but lately it’s just been the tree and the village in the dining room. Some of it is the idea of bringing out all the boxes, unpacking them and putting them back, then bringing them out again, repacking them and putting them back again. And they are on shelves in my garage which I did for convenience and the fact that our weather can be unpredictable at this time of year and some years finding a rain-free window to bring in the boxes from the storage building was difficult. The garage was a better option all around. Doing it all used to be fun and for years I had a lot of help, but these days it’s me alone and I wear out quicker than I used to. It took me three days to wrap gifts. I used to be able to do it in one day.
Thanks for the birthday wishes from everyone. It’s my 77th. David and I will be going to the Cheesecake Factory at the mall this evening so I can see all the beautiful decorations in the area. We will eat dinner there but get our cheesecake choices to go. I’m always so full from my dinner that I would not truly enjoy the gourmet cheesecake experience and that’s part of the fun of going there.
Happy anniversary to Linda and Michael. It’s a pleasure sharing a date with you. Your picking the same card was so sweet but after 57 years it’s not surprising you think alike.
Dear Barbara, Happy Birthday from Pennsylvania! I am happy that you are going to the cheesecake factory. We don’t have one locally but I scout them out when I am traveling.
What a fun place to go and see all the different sides and stories that make the Holidays so much fun. The wrapping station, the train set up, the animals and yes the icicles( how did they do that?) the candy cane story, and the Nativity characters. So I’m confused about the Grandpa… is he a summertime Santa? Beautiful dolls with him.
Thanks so much for sending all the photos and thanks for posting them Jeanne!
Dear Jeanne, I didn’t put up a tree either. My tree is just a small one that comes out of a box anyway. I had a nice time with my family and I got to see my little grandson so that was all the joy and “ho, ho, ho” I needed.