Christmas Dolls

Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement
Christmas Dolls

I remember the year I received a large doll with real feeling hair for Christmas. I named her Alice. She was big enough to wear some of my baby clothes mother had saved from my own infancy. I was sure she was the most beautiful doll in all the world. I don’t know how long it took me to mess her hair up from its original appearance, but what mattered to me was that she fit the little hats I wore when I was a baby, and I kept one on her all the time. To me, she looked quite regal presiding over my pretend tea parties at my child’s size table with the four little chairs occupied by three dolls. One was Susie Q who was my very first baby doll. Made of rubber, Suzie Q would wet her diaper when fed with her small bottle filled with real water. She and Alice were joined by Shirley who had fuzzy hair styled in a forward fashion called a pixie cut. Both she and Alice had stuffed bodies but arms and legs made of some hard material that eventually bore serious damage to their fingers and toes. An only child, I spent hours carrying on conversations with my dolls. We didn’t need real liquid in the little tin cups nor real looking cookies on the unbreakable plates. I made up for the lack of real food by offering my doll guests many servings from the empty toy platter and teapot. I was the undisputed boss of the parties. But my imagination must have sufficed for those times when my cousins or friends could join my tea parties. No one refused to come to tea.

Thinking back on those tea parties, makes me smile. I remember those parties with delight. I suppose in my own childish way I was developing some vestige of social skills that still serve me well with my grown up, real people guests. And a gathering of real live friends is still a high light of my real-life joys. Way back in those days, my parents were busy modeling the importance of people. At my house a real, for sure friend was worthy of stopping everything else to focus our attention on our guest and to go out of our way to make sure the time together was pleasant. Mother cooked special dishes, and she and my Dad devoted their attention to whoever was our visitor. They asked about the things our guests considered important. They exclaimed with delight over pictures of loved ones pulled out of a purse or wallet. I loved seeing the people who came and went at our house. I’m grateful for all the large or small lessons of life I learned from them. A good Christmas value to reinforce this Christmas time is the value of people over things or experiences.