Hello!! Happy December! For those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope you had a lovely day. I’m happy you’re here today! We are going to talk for a few minutes about Christmas decorating and how or if you use your dolls to decorate. So….”Let’s Talk Dolls”….grab your coffee/tea and let’s get started.
My Madame Alexander 8″ dolls are frequently used in my decorating. They are tiny enough that they make lovely little vignettes in smaller spots. I not only use them at Christmas but all throughout the year for holiday decorating. I will include a photo of some of my decorating with these little sweeties. Do you use your small dolls for decorating?
Many of the dolls I collect are quite large, and they make some neat holiday displays. Do you dress your dolls for the holidays? There are just so many avenues to take when adding your dolls to the holiday mix! And they never fail to bring a smile to our faces!
I have thought back to when I was a child and tried to remember dolls being used for Christmas decorating. The first memory that I can recall is standing on the sidewalk with my hands and nose pressed against a cold, frosty store display window looking at the aluminum tree with the beautiful rainbow reflector changing the colors of the tree. The fantastically gorgeous dolls in all sizes all wearing their Sunday best dresses. There were doll buggies, doll strollers, doll beds that the sides raised up and down, tiny little kitchens, tiny trunks full of beautiful little dresses…everything any little girl would ever want for her dolly. I remember a tiny train making its way from one end of the window display to the other and back again. While the little boy standing next to me was thrilled with the train and all the BB guns and the pedal cars, I was totally focused on those beautiful dolls with sleep eyes that opened and closed and their beautifully styled hair with the big, colorful bows that matched their dresses perfectly. There were dolls of all sizes, from the tiniest that were no bigger than my hand to the ones that were as big as I was at the time. Some were displayed in beautiful boxes with the lid removed and the wrapping paper still on the bottom of the box. Others were standing around the tree and “playing” with all the various toys scattered throughout the window display. It was literally a magical scene to me as a little girl from a small town. I wasn’t used to seeing store windows like this one! There was a crowd gathering in front of the window and my Granny insisted that I allow someone else to have my spot and to share. While I wasn’t thrilled about moving away from the window, I remember my Pap picking me up and holding me so that I could see above the crowd. Turns out that I still had a good view of all the magical things happening in that window as my Pap was over six feet tall! That is still such a wonderfully vivid memory for me. That wonderful window was completely decorated with all those magnificent dolls and all their accouterments. I believe that probably set some sort of precedence in my mind that it was totally okay to use dolls to decorate for Christmas. I talked about that window for the longest time, so it definitely made an impression on me.
I have been seeing many Christmas scenes scattered about on Instagram and Pinterest. I enjoy the vintage dolls with the vintage toys and decorations. Such beautiful reminders of Christmas from the past. I also see scenes with Barbie and her friends celebrating the holidays. She always looks so beautiful and stylish. I love to see the dolls all dressed in their Christmas attire. I also enjoy sewing those dresses for my girls! For me, half the fun of the holidays is the preparation and decorating.
Whether you have one doll or one hundred, it is fun to incorporate them into your holiday decorating. I’ve heard it said that “Christmas is for kids.” If that is the case, I don’t want to ever get too old to play with dolls. How about you?
So how will your dolls spend this coming holiday season? Will they be playing in the doll room, or possibly wearing dresses that look alike, or will they be sitting under the tree as if Santa has left them there for you? The possibilities are endless! What are the possibilities that are percolating through your mind?
Have you started to decorate yet for Christmas or perhaps you are finished….either way, as doll collectors, we still view Christmas as through the eyes of a child because of our love for dolls. We see something that those who are not doll collectors often miss. It almost seems as though we are in on a secret of some sort…..
I will leave you with these thoughts and my views for incorporating my dolls into my personal holiday decorating and why I use them in the festivities of the decorations. I’m sure you all have your own special reasons….whatever the reason, ENJOY the season and remember why we celebrate this time of year. After all….”its the most wonderful time of the year” as the song says…..
Be well and be kind to one another.
Big Hugs to each of you!
Lynn
BabyBoomerDolls
PS – Throughout December I will be posting snippets of my decorating with my dolls on my Instagram account (@babyboomerdolls), if you would like to take a peek. I’m sure it will change over the next 24 days, so check back frequently! 🙂