American Girl Nastalgia

When I was a wee lass I was OBSESSED with American Girl Dolls.  OBSESSED.  And this was before they even became a household name.  See, I loved all things old fashioned.  So when the small (Pre-Mattel) "Pleasant Company" started selling dolls based on the characters from their historical "American Girl" book series, I was smitten.  Hook, Line and Sinker.  I wanted a doll.  I NEEEEEDED a doll.

 My parents were SO not going to get me a doll at $88 a pop.  I begged, I pleaded... I might as well have been asking for a Pony.  I wasn't getting one from Mom and Pop.

Christmas came.  No doll under the tree.  We went to Grams and Gramps for Christmas celebrations with the larger Frew Family.  No doll box under the tree.  But there was a small jewelry sized box and not much else under the tree for me.  I opened the small box and inside was a clue.

Go to the flower pot in the bedroom.  Under that, another clue.

Go to the top drawer in bathroom.  Another clue. 

Go to the place clothing is dried.   The dryer?  In the creapy basement?  OOoookay.  Great.  Grams and Gramps are giving me clothes and sending me on a rat race to bout! 

I went to the dryer fully expecting clothes.  Sprung open the dryer door and there she was nestled in a bed of towels.  Samantha Parkington!  Complete with winter coat, muff and hat.  She even had the Christmas Dress on!  (My grams is quite an exceptional sewista.  She made all the clothing nearly identical to the catalog clothes.) 

It is probably the best Christmas I ever had as a child.  And this is the only present I got from Grams and Gramps that year.  I didn't need anything else.  I was over the moon happy.  I realize this is probably a totally materialistic reaction and memory.  But it was.  I loved those stories and the characters in them.  And that my Grams put so much into those gifts from the sacrifice of purchasing the doll, to the painstaking work at making those clothes.  It makes me happy to remember. 

And I am now reexperiencing that love through my girls.  They, like their mama, love historical fiction.  Laura Ingalls and Kirsten Larson are favorites.  Trips to the Genesee Country Museum allow them to live and act out their love of history.  It warms my heart.  It makes me a little girl all over again.