One Christmas Eve a long time ago, Santa came to my house and left a doll family under my tree. I was so thrilled! I had a mommy and daddy doll and a baby doll. The mama doll was a bride doll in a gorgeous dress. She was around eighteen inches tall, and the dad doll was a bit taller. The baby was smaller of course.
My sister also received a doll family, but she got the bridesmaid doll instead of a bride. I remember thinking the pink bridesmaid dress was prettier than the bride’s dress.
Santa had also gone to a seamstress who had made a wardrobe for each of the dolls. I can still remember how beautiful the clothes were. One of my favorite pieces for my bride was a blue cape with a hood edged in white fur. Oh, the dolls were spectacular!
My sister and I played with them for years before we finally outgrew them. We left them in the containers we had been given for them, and that’s where I expected mine to be when I went looking for them. I had my own house and wanted the dolls. To my surprise they were gone.
It seems that my dad had given them to a cousin who sold them at a flea market! I was devastated. One of my greatest childhood treasures was gone. So do I have any of my toys left?
No toys, but I do still have some of my books. I owned The Black Stallion series, The My Friend Flicka trilogy, The Trixie Belden books, and various others. All of those titles are proudly displayed on my nicest bookshelf, and sometimes I’ll pull one out and just take a read down memory lane.
What about you? Any toys or books left at your house?
Angela Schroeder
Patricia Kiyono
Elaine Cantrell
Jeff Salter
Joselyn
Tonette Joyce
I am so sorry about your dolls; they sound gorgeous, with all the outfits.
When I was a teen, a relative of my nieces’ brought in a bunch of unclean, (mostly large) stuffed animals from rummage sales to our house.My mother shoved them in a cabinet under stairs and had me distract the girls. A week later I found that she had thrown out one of my oldest and dearest stuffed animals, which was small, she should have recognized.
A couple of my absolute favorite stuffed animals were put into a hot garage when I was a young adult .Apparently ,they had not been washed and bugs got into them. My sister told me, and wanted to show me,but no, I did not want to see them. I had her give them an unceremonious burial… the dump.
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They were gorgeous. The lady who made the clothes was a genius. I think my dad felt bad about getting rid of them, but I guess he didn’t know how much I loved them.
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How disappointing to find your childhood treasures gone! My parents were the opposite – they never threw away ANYTHING, and we’ve recently had to dig through and decide what to keep and what to get rid of. I still have my Barbie dolls, which were the only dolls in our house I was allowed to play with. Our Japanese dolls were for looking at – they were definitely not toys!
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Your Japanese dolls are lovely. They probably weren’t meant to be played with. I never had a Barbie. When Barbie came out I was right on the edge of being too old to enjoy dolls so Mama never got me any.
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I didn’t have Barbie but when I was very young my mother got a pre-Barbie, a Coty fashion dolls, one for me and one for my sister. (Mom was mad when I cut the hair off of the doll. I bet they are real coolector’s items now.) I did have a “Tammy, who was quite a bit more realistic-looking than Barbies.
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Oh yes, Barbie was very unrealistic. I bet that doll is a collector’s item.
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I still have a few books and some comic books.
And the same thing happened to me — while away at college, I guess. My dad cleaned out the attic… a “preserve” I had assumed was sacrosanct. Had he provided any notice whatsoever, I would have said, “Please don’t throw away my (toy) rifles.” But he did… and lots more, besides.
Surprisingly — and I’m still not certain how or why — I managed to hang on to a lot of my childhood stuff. And you’ll learn more about that during Hound Day tomorrow.
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I should add here, that because I still felt the sting of that loss:
when we were down-sizing, instead of me doing anything with my son’s toys and belongings, I notified him of our plan and schedule, and left it to HIM to decide what to keep and what to donate. It wasn’t easy keeping him on that task, but far better for those decisions to come from him than for me to repeat the generational CRIME of discarding what may have been treasures (in my son’s eyes).
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I can’t wait to hear about your treasures, and you have my sympathy for what you lost.
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I’m sorry to hear about your dolls. That would have been very upsetting.
I wish I had books from my childhood. I have been slowly buying new copies of books that I truly loved. For my last birthday I was given the entire Little House collection again. I remember getting it for one birthday when I was little. All of my books were at my parents house when there was a housefire.
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That’s terrible! I hope the fire didn’t destroy their home.
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