New Year, New Ideas...And Saige!

Let me start by announcing that yesterday, New Year's Day, I drove from Rhode Island to Natick, MA all by myself for the first time. Yes, I am almost 30 years old, and no, that doesn't sound amazing at all, but trust me, it is for me. I am still slowly getting over a phobia of driving, especially long distances. I didn't really start driving until I was 20. So this was a big deal. I wanted to start the new year off right, setting a goal for myself and meeting it...and I reeeeeeaaaaaaally couldn't wait to see (and get) the new Girl of the Year. Saige is gorgeous, and I knew she was destined to be mine as soon as the leaks reached my eyes. Come on, she's an artist who clearly loves to accessorize with jewelry. She was made for me!

Saige is my first modern doll, and I'm still not really sure what to do with her. I love her modern clothes and all, but she doesn't really have a place with the rest of the historical girls here. I have tentatively created a character for her in Josefina's story, which will allow her to stay in New Mexico. Since she has beautiful auburn hair, bright blue eyes, and freckles, she definitely could be believable as an Irish girl, specifically Moira Collins, Patrick O'Toole's little cousin from Missouri. Saige looks like a Moira to me. So maybe the story is that Moira comes with the rest of the family to New Mexico to see Patrick and Francisca's wedding, and she and Fi become fast friends.

Moira and her border collie Bella

I love Hearts 4 Hearts Girls, too, and when Saige's pictures were first shown to me a few months ago, I noticed that she and Dell, the Appalachian American H4H Girl doll, looked very similar to each other. Especially those lovely, bright turquoise eyes! I decided that, regardless of whatever sort of character my Saige became, she would certainly enjoy a little sister. So here is Saige/Moira and her sister Della.

I love how Della's freckled nose is pink with sunburn!

Moving on, though. My last two AG dolls that I bought last year were Emily and Molly. When I was young, I loved Molly's books; they were the very first exposure I had to the American Girls' Collection. But I had a prejudice against the original three dolls that I suspect had something to do with their all having bangs. I was made to have bangs up until 6th grade, and I HATED them. I still cringe when I look at pictures of myself with bangs. I don't think it was a coincidence that Addy was my very first childhood AG doll, followed by Felicity.

But anyway, Molly had the bang thing going against her, and of all of the American Girls, she was definitely not the most glamorous. I never liked her looks, and I wasn't interested in her collection because it wasn't fancy or "old-fashioned" enough. I still retain somewhat of an indifference to all fashions occurring after the turn of the (20th) century. War made everything boring and practical. It made girls wear pants.

After becoming reacquainted with AG later in life, I discovered the "best friend dolls," and Emily caught my eye all the time. I loved her pretty face. She seemed so sophisticated, and reminded me of my childhood best friend. I knew it was only a matter of time before she joined my collection of girls. And of course, the constant rumors of the looming archival for Molly's collection made me decide that she should come here sooner rather than later.

Two months after I had Emily, I couldn't help getting Molly. Mattel Molly is so much more lively and pretty than her earlier Pleasant Company version. She would command my attention whenever I visited the AG Place with those beautiful grey eyes!

So, I have two dolls that I love dearly, but feel no real connection or passion to their intended era. Emily is significant to me personally in that my Grandpa fought in WWII and stayed for a time in Britain. He was said to have pronounced the British a very good and hospitable sort of folk. Grandpa passed away a few months after I got Emily, and so she will always remind me of the hero that he was.

But, that doesn't mean that I want to play 1940s with Molly and Emily. But over the last couple of days, a new idea for them has been weaving itself in my mind. My Molly is going to become Victoria Holmes, the grey-eyed, bookish daughter of Sherringford Holmes. Sherringford Holmes is, of course, the younger (and most ordinary) sibling of the celebrated brothers Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes. (I have been a Sherlock Holmes enthusiast since 1997, when I first discovered his stories in my freshman year of high school. Therefore, this story line is exciting me to no end!)

Sherringford was the only Holmes brother to marry and settle down into a normal kind of life. He possesses absolutely no astounding cerebral talents whatsoever, works an ordinary job in London, and has a perfectly normal family of his own. Victoria, who is going to be about 11 or 12 when her story starts, is a puzzle to her parents and her pretty social butterfly of a sister, Charlotte. Her father realized early on that she must take after his brothers, and this causes him to worry endlessly about her future.

Now, I am going to have to do some math to figure out logistics pertaining to characters' ages before anything is finalized, but I'm going to roughly guess that Victoria's adventures will take place in the 1890s. She will have a best friend in the daughter of Dr. John Watson, named Erin, who is just Victoria's age. What will they do? Why, help Uncle Sherlock with his work, of course, and even solve some mysteries of their own!

That sounds SO lame, but I'm getting tired, and that is the most basic way to explain what I've got brewing in my brain right now.

BFFs Erin and Tori,  ready to take on Victorian London! (Perhaps someday they will find attire appropriate for that time period!)