Christmas

 

I visited on the telephone with my mother this Christmas morning. We made plans to connect later in the day when we stop to deliver her Christmas dinner in exchange for the figgy pudding with lemon sauce and hard sauce she put together using Wanda Metzger's recipe. Wanda would be pleased to know that the Christmas pudding she so lovingly shared on the family table over the years is still part of the Christmas feast.

Do we all remember childhood Christmases in a blur with all the years running as a highlight reel? With the perspective of age, nearly all my memories focus on the thoughtful and loving ways gifts appeared under the tree each Christmas morning - not just for me but for my brothers and for Mom and Dad too.

My Daddy built me this doll house for Christmas one year. I believe the plans may have come from a magazine and were in the style I recognize today as mid-century modern. It slid together to form a sprawling one-story doll house with a garage. My childhood chum Susan Frederick (pictured with barrette in her hair above) loved my dollhouse and always wanted to play with it when she came over.

The dollhouse survived my childhood and was pulled down from the attic in the garage for my nieces and nephews to play with from time to time. I believe my daughter and her grandmother must have used wrapping paper to update the wallpaper back in 1980s.

My Mommy was the one who spent endless hours outfitting all my dolls in beautiful handmade wardrobes - from the matching red polka dot flannel bathrobes that Mom, me and my baby doll had to the sophisticated garb for my beautiful tall black-haired ballerina doll.

That ballerina doll had black taffeta lounging pajamas with bright magenta piping. Her green winter coat with furry collar and cuffs had a matching hat and muff. She had a wide-skirted summer dress with a bright summery print and colorful rick-rack trim. There was even a filmy pink nightgown.

Those clothes were much easier to sew than the ones she made for Betsy McCall. Betsy was a diminutive six inches and making those clothes was truly an act of love. I remember a reversible jacket with a black and white print on one side and black with white stitching on the other side.  Her little dresses also had little rick rack trimmings.

One year I was given a record player - a Silvertone from the Sears catalog and it was blue. That was the year I spoiled my own surprise by snooping around to find my Christmas presents and discovered a record album - the soundtrack to Bye Bye Birdie. I've never had the urge to snoop again.