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!)

The Fate of Marie-Grace Gardner

For the past year, I have pretty much decided that the character of Marie-Grace is so pathetic and underdeveloped that I can no longer make her stay true to her "canon" self. There's so little I can do with her. AG really wasn't paying attention when they approved the NOLA project. A girl in New Orleans who wasn't born there and has very little personal connections to it, supposed to be in the same friend circle as a girl in a totally different racial, cultural, and social class? Part of the time, at least? Otherwise, she spends her time volunteering (living) at an orphanage while being completely ignored by her father. Her father is a doctor, by the way, so...why are they so painfully middle class?

In any event, I suppose I could have her predictably be "adopted" by her aunt and uncle and ultimately live with them in Belle Cheniere, but then her story just kind of fizzles and ends.

I think Marie-Grace is one of the most unique and beautiful dolls ever created by American Girl, and it is completely unfair that she got the shaft. She has a hairstyle that scares many people off, an obnoxiously pink Meet outfit, and a terribly un-graceful name. Well, I think she is destined for much greater things in life.

My first thought was to rename her Lydia Gardner and bring her to 1850s New England. I live in New England, and we have yet to be represented by an American Girl. Plus, before we knew her story, I was hoping that newly released Caroline Abbott would have more to do with the actual ocean and sailing. So, Lydia could definitely fill that role nicely. Her father would be a wealthy captain of a whaling vessel, and Lydia would live in a beautiful house with a widow's walk overlooking the vast grey sea. I would like this family to live in Cape Cod, specifically, especially if I can get my hands on some good sources to find out about Cape Cod in the mid-19th century.

Lydia among her nautical tools in Cape Cod.

Another idea for Lydia is that she could very well still be a singing ingenue from New York from a slightly later era, maybe the 1880s or 1890s. But that era may well be reserved for "alternate Molly," or as I just imagined her this morning, Victoria Holmes.

Disney LE Wedding Rapunzel

I am excited today because pre-orders are being accepted at midnight PST by Disney for the 17" Limited Edition Rapunzel Wedding doll. I haven't even seen Tangled Ever After, since they cleverly decided to tack it on to the recent theatrical release of Beauty and the Beast 3D, but from the first preview pics of her, I was in love. I adore her sassy short hair, and obviously the wedding dress is a masterpiece. I REALLY shouldn't be spending any more money after the Birthday Bonanza I just enjoyed not two days ago at the AG Place in Boston, but...I'm going to just see if I get a chance to do the online pre-order, and then, if it's successful, "I'll think about that tomorrow." I am on the east coast, so the pre-order starts here at 3 am. And since I took tomorrow off for my personal four-day birthday weekend, I can actually be up at that time without dire consequences. 

It seems ridiculous, I know, but I actually did it before back in the fall of 2011 when Disney released the Designer Dolls (I really wanted Snow White). It was terribly fun because all the other crazies like me were hanging out on the Disney Store Facebook page and enjoying each other's company as we nervously waited for the victorious moment we could add the doll to our shopping carts and check out before the website crashed. I didn't make it, unfortunately, but I treasure that weird experience all the same. Later, I had a grand time reading other people's accounts of that night, especially the ones who went to wait in line for a doll in person at a physical Disney Store. 

So, anyway, I still am arguing back and forth with myself about the necessity of owning this particular Rapunzel doll. Her beauty is stunning, but here is one doll I definitely wouldn't be able to unbox and play with. That will bug me; most dolls that I do have never stay in their boxes for long. I'm not one for collecting for the monetary value of things. I love to handle, pose, change outfits, and do hair. But I can't get Wedding Rapunzel out of my mind, so I'm sure I'll be sitting at this computer in 9 hours with my heart in my mouth.

Introduction: Why Play?

This blog is a place I will come to share my thoughts about the importance of playing and using one's imagination no matter how old one becomes. For whatever reason, I have never lost interest in toys, and now that I am almost 30, I am publicly giving myself permission to keep enjoying dolls and stuffed animals. Furthermore, as I do climb in age and start seeing the kids of today from an objective viewpoint, I am constantly concerned that children are not using their imaginations and playing as much as my peers and I used to. I do NOT have children myself (and that is a subject for another time), so maybe this observation is not as accurate as I think it is. Yet it seems like girls are influenced from earlier and earlier ages to grow up and concentrate on more adult things like clothes, shoes, hair, nails, boys...that window of time when kids just let their Barbies deal with those kinds of things seems to be narrowing as the generations pass.

As an only child (who grew up in the early 80s), playing was sacred to me. It was how I spent all my time, and how I filled the room with colorful stories and characters to keep me company. I had all the usual toys of that day: Barbies, My Little Ponies, Rainbow Brite's, She-Ra's, Jem dolls, a Precious Places doll house, stuffed animals, and a corner of the basement set up to play "house" in, complete with toy kitchen and a bureau of "dress-up" clothes. I didn't have excessive amounts of toys, as my parents went to great lengths to make sure I wasn't spoiled. But I had plenty, and I enjoyed them all. But then, life happened, as it is prone to do, and I had less and less time to think about such things. School work took up most of my time, because it was important to me to be an excellent student. And I can't imagine how it would have been if I had had all the extra-curricular activities that most kids seem to have today pulling me in even more different directions. I was never in to sports or clubs. I have always been an artist, though, and most of my free time went to working on independent projects. I graduated high school with honors, went to college and majored in metalsmithing/jewelry design, found a job as a designer in a costume jewelry company, and then married the love of my life, who I had dated all through college. Now we have a house, and life has calmed down. Growing up happened, as far as I'm concerned. And guess what? I finally had the time to realize that some of my dolls and I have unfinished business together. 

 Thanks for reading, whoever you are, and stay tuned for more insight, doll pics, stories, and anything else that I think is worth documenting as I continue this "playtime" experiment and hopefully inspire others to do the same. 

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