Mockingbird Hill Cottage

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Merry Christmas

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Two days until Christmas. I’m finished coaching for the time being. Now, Don and I will rest and enjoy listening to Christmas music and keeping our traditions as we welcome Christmas. It will be quiet here, which is kind of the way we like it. Peace – that’s what we want for ourselves and everyone. And for the world.

Chloe and Ella are enjoying their first Christmas here at the cottage. Shockingly, there were five new girls this year! Yikes. No more for the time being. I don’t have the money or the room. A few of them came to me as opportunities I couldn’t pass up – dream dolls made by my favorite customizers. These two are examples of that; someone put one up for adoption and I knew I would lose out if I didn’t jump at the chance. Same with Miranda, the red-haired beauty. But now I have to toughen up, stay strong, and be grateful for what I have. And I am.

A long afternoon of undressing dolls, adding sweaters, removing them, and redressing them in their original clothes resulted in this. It’s not the best, but I hope you like it.

Don, the girls, and I wish you a Merry Christmas, my friends.

I hope your Christmas is all you wish it to be.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your visits to this little place on the internet. You are wonderful friends and I treasure you.

I’ll take Monday off, so the next post will be on Wednesday.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

And stay safe.

 

 

Comments

  1. what a cute photo of all the girls on the sofa! their outfits, their expressions are darling.

    thanks for that and all you share here, claudia … bits of your world, shared with generosity of mind and heart. i appreciate the time and effort it takes to post. and i am grateful for the community of people here at mhc that are equally as kind and thoughtful as you and don. you are all friends that have brightened my days and cheered me on … thank you. i hope someday we will meet in person.

    merry Christmas to you, don and everyone else. same to your families, friends and the world. here’s to a healthy, happy, safe, brighter new year for everyone too.

    hugs and love to all,
    kathy

    • Kathy:
      I agree with everything you said. You always say it so much better than I can. I always love your comments. I am also thankful for this community Claudia has provided for us. I consider everyone here to be a friend I just haven’t met yet. Kathy, I wish you a wonderful Christmas with your family and loved ones.
      Love and hugs, Dottie

      • there’s no “better” with my writing … but you are very kind, dottie, and i thank you for what you said. :)

        i appreciate your wishes and say the same to you and your loves.

        how will you spend these extra-special days?

        i will be with my father and sister, sharing meals and memories, going for walks, watching “it’s a wonderful life” tomorrow night. my sister and i just finished making our much-loved and much-missed mother’s recipe for baked spaghetti and will put it in the oven during (online) church tomorrow. will get to spend time with my brother, sister-in-law, nieces and their four young children later next week. hard when we can’t be all together on holidays as in years past, but we are together in love and spirit and try to focus on the sweet, not the bitter. we do what we can, right?

        merry Christmas, dottie!

        hugs and love,
        kathy

      • thank you, vicki!

        i hope you, your husband and pup enjoy a wonderful Christmas and new year. how will you spend Christmas?

        i hope and pray that your husband stays well (he’s had lots of possible covid exposures, hasn’t he?) and that you do, too!

        hugs and love,
        kathy

  2. Merry Christmas to you and Don and the girls of MHC…and to all of the sweet people who meet here from time to time. Peace be with you all.

  5. Darling picture of the girls….they look ready to celebrate, in their Christmas sweaters.

    Wishing you, Don, and all readers of MHC a very Merry Christmas. May you all find Peace and Joy in this holiday season! ;)

  8. Love the picture of your girls looking so festive in their Christmas outfits. Yes, if only there was peace in this old world of ours. Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas. Hugs, Elaine

  10. Didn’t realize how extensive your family of girls was until I saw that photograph of all of them together. It looks like a very holiday photo!

    I’m busily sewing away. Though my daughters are adults, they still love their American Girl dolls, which we bought before the company was sold to Mattel. We prefer the original dolls and clothing. The original dolls were made from a more extensive collection of facial molds and skin tints. The dolls are now made with a limited number of molds and tints. And the clothing is not as good anymore…decals ironed onto the clothes instead of machine embroidery, and thinner, less quality fabric.

    However, I’m an excellent home sewer, so I sew most of the clothes. So, on Xmas eve eve and Xmas eve, I’ll be at my machine. I was knocked out by a virus for two days. Not COVID. Suspected flu, but it only lasted 48 hours, moderate fever and fatigue. Now, I feel like I’m back to par. A stumper. One daughter experienced a similar illness.

    Happy winter holidays, Claudia and Don, and all the readers out there. Hope you find the peace you crave.

    • Wendy T, I love that you’re a home sewer and that you make doll clothes. I’m a real fan of the American Girl dolls (I do have one; I look for their sales sometimes [rarely!] so that I can pick up an outfit or an accessory at a greatly-reduced price for her [as the clothes are indeed VERY expensive]). I love the historical characters and, back in the day, I pulled together quite a bit of the (19th century) Josefina doll although I don’t have the actual doll herself; there were some really wonderful ‘pieces’ (like doll furniture) to go with her Southwestern story. I identified with her because, first of all, I love New Mexico which is where she lived; but, also, I personally have lived in a predominantly Mexican-American community (in Southern Calif) most all of my life (and where my ancestors had lived since about 1917) and although I am non-Mexican (Latina), the culture/traditions (music, art, language, food, etc.) are deeply, deeply enmeshed in my being. (Like, at this time of year with the holidays, I go in search of the best tamales in the local shops. I could eat them every single day. [I think I’m addicted to masa {the corn flour}.] In ‘the old days’, I often made tamales with neighbors and friends in home kitchens; each family has their own ‘recipe’ from ‘way, ‘way back, carefully taught to succeeding generations by the grandmas, and I swear no tamale tastes the same as another; they’re all different, and I’ve never met an authentic tamale I didn’t like; it’s a lot of work and skill to make a good, homemade tamale and I’ll always be in the ‘learning process’ of the craft!)

      • Hi Vicki,

        Your tamale story resonated with me. I’m Chinese and we have a leaf-wrapped rice food item called “joong”. It’s made with sticky rice and other ingredients, which, like family tamale recipes, vary upon the maker. I had a great aunt who likes to put boiled peanuts into each corner of the packet. Another aunt would use fatty pork, while another would use Chinese sausage. My grandmothers and my Dad made the best ones, to me! One could also identify who made the joong based on how it was wrapped. Some did fancy pyramidal shapes, others did rectangles, some did a fancy twist in the rectangle.

        I love hearing these family stories and traditions, so thank you for sharing!

        As for AG dolls, we have 9, a mix of historical dolls and just like me dolls. I bought a Latina doll for one daughter and a Chinese one (Ivy, Julie’s best friend) for the other. I had a bit of trouble buying Ivy on eBay but she finally arrived after 5 weeks and complaining to eBay when the vendor turned unresponsive. But, she’s here and I’m having fun sewing outfits that culturally and historically relate to our girls.

        Have a fun gastronomic journey searching for THAT tamale, though like you, I personally haven’t come across a bad one.

        Happy Holidays!

        • i am not at all into cooking (though i gladly do it for my family), nor do i collect dolls, but it was sure fun hearing you and vicki talk about tamales and joong and a-g dolls (sorry if i’m eavesdropping!). love the connections here (thanks for starting/keeping mhc, claudia)!

          merry Christmas, wendy, to you and your family. how will you spend these holidays? hope you enjoy every one of them.

          • in part because i have several collections of my own and ‘get it’, i love hearing about what people collect and why and that includes claudia’s little blythes … adorable. will have to research the american girl dolls. and i am grateful that we have my mother’s doll and my maternal grandmother’s doll, too. :)

            hugs and love and merryChristmas,
            kathy

          • Hi Kathy,

            Unfortunately, my Mom is getting over COVID so we won’t get together. My daughter did deliver groceries today.

            We’ll probably make raviolis for Xmas dinner. It’ll just be the three of us. For Mew Year’s Day, my brother and his family and the theee of us will be with Mom. My other brother married into a Japanese family so they cook a huge feast of traditional Japanese food. Then my brother and his children drive around to deliver the meal boxes to family and friends. We used to get together and eat in one place but the invitee list got too large.

            Then in late January, the entire family will finally get together, just because. It’ll be nice to eat together and talk without any holiday pressure.

            Enjoy your holidays, Kathy. I eavesdrop on all the conversations here, too! Claudia has gathered some of the best people.

            • i pray that your mother’s recovery is quick and complete. and i’m glad you will be able to spend new year’s together. in the meantime, thankfully there are phones. not the same as being together, but better than nothing, right?!?

              glad you can spend time with other family members. the gifting of home-made/home-delivered meals sounds wonderful!

              meant to say this earlier … one of my favorite things to hear is people owning their talents so, wendy, when you wrote about yourself “i’m an excellent home sewer”, it just made me smile. good for you! :)

              agree about the people here! :)

              merry Christmas!

              • Thank you, Kathy. Mom is a lot better and finished the course of Paxlovid a few days ago. I told her to test again. We may see her this week before New Year’s if she’s negative. Meanwhile, she has groceries.

                Thanks for your comment about “owning one’s talent”. It took me years of shedding that part of an upbringing where my sibs and I were expected to excel but not be externally proud of our accomplishments. It was considered boastful. I’m grateful that my Mom’s attitude has 180-degrees turned and she encourages all her grandchildren, and children, to, as you say, own their talents.

                Happy Xmas Eve!

                • hope she tests negative and feels better soon!

                  and hooray for owning your goodness.
                  :)

                  xo,
                  kathy

        • How interesting! I am so glad to learn of joong. I love Julie and Ivy’s American Girl story. Because they’re the 1970s era and young, I can relate a lot to them, because I too was young in the 70s (flower-power, shag rugs, bell-bottom jeans!) and I remember the for-real (human) furnishings and clothing for these two dolls, besides which the story setting is San Francisco, a city which I’ve adored (and, last time there, although it’s a long time ago now, had an excellent meal with my cousins in Chinatown, which is an important downtown historical district).

          Thank you, too, for sharing today! I learn so much from Claudia’s readers!

  12. Merry Christmas to you and Don. I love all your girls and enjoy you buying them. I would love to have them but, like you not much room in our smallish cottage. So I enjoy your collection as if it were mine. Have a blessed Christmas and praying for a better New Year.

    • Thinking of you this Christmas season, Cathy. I know you are missing your husband.

      Much love,
      Claudia

  15. Merry Christmas to you ALL!
    I so enjoy reading your thoughts and seeing the photos of your beautiful cottage and garden.
    Let’s all hope for peace in 2024. It’s not too much to ask for, surely?
    Denise

  17. I just finished my last bit of baking and sat down to read your blog. Ah, those girls altogether are the best ! I always enjoy seeing what they are up to. My husband and I are having a very quiet Christmas as well. It’s the way we like it. So, Merry Christmas to you and Don and the girls. And above all Peace….

  18. I’m thinking I’ve counted eighteen dolls, so that’s a pretty-good collection even if you go no further with it; and what a fun hobby; they’re all so different, and I never knew a Blythe doll before you, so it’s been an education for me.

    Maybe you could concentrate on their clothes for a while; invest in the clothes instead of more dolls; just take a time out on the dolls in 2024; it could be cost-effective and still very enjoyable to widen the wardrobe-only. (I did this with my Barbies. Higher-end clothes when they’ve come out; not the stuff for little girls to rip around on from the Barbie aisles at a discount store; because, for me and adult tastes, they’re just too cheaply made [meant to be affordable doll clothes of course], so I’ve tried to save money in the past to wait for the adult-collector stuff.)

    The outfits you’ve amassed so far are just wonderful with incredible detailing; you’ve got the eye for what’s well made and just so darling on the Blythe girls. Think of what’s still out there to be created for them to wear (oh, be still my heart; their SHOES; adorable!). Amazing Blythe-clothes artists in the world, such skilled sewing, design and construction. (What a discovery, to learn of this.) You’ll be able to find JUST the right things for clothes and maybe accessories!

    I know what it’s like to have to curb a collection; it can be a tug ‘o war. (I feel for ya, Claudia!)

    In the meantime, Merry Christmas to you and Don! Wish you had snow (gently falling of course). Enjoy some peaceful rest-time now that your coaching concludes.

    • 17 Blythes and one little BJD. And that’s exactly my goal this year – buy some clothing, maybe one outfit a month. And shoes.

      No snow, just gray and cold.

      xoxo

      • Going back over comments seeing if I missed anything!

        Are you saying you’ll be buying 17 more Blythes in 2024, or 7?

        Tell me, with the rainbow of hair colors and hair styling, what’s on your mind still to purchase; what are you missing; what are your yearnings! Because some of us talked about the American Girl dolls here and I’d like another six or seven of those dolls myself(!!!) because you can somewhat design your own doll with freckles or not, eyeglasses or not, curly or straight hair, short hair or long hair, brown eyes or blue or green, several skin ‘tints’ (I confess to spending a few hours designing dolls online with their little online tool on the AG site; it’s fun!).

        I imagine you might want to be focusing also on one or two particularly-fine designers of Blythes and their accessories that you’ve now learned of?

        How is this journey gonna look in 2024 (inquiring minds [me, Vicki!!] want to know!)?

        I’m intrigued and looking forward to it.

        • I don’t know what you read or if I was unclear. I have 17 Blythes now and I don’t plan on buying any more for a while – if ever. I said I’d like to concentrate on clothes for the girls this year. Much more affordable.

          There are three customizers that I particularly love: Dragonfly Blythe, Vega Dolls, and Ferro Dolls. Dragonfly Blythe is – apparently – no longer customizing (sob) so if I ever get another one, it will have to be the way I got Prudence, through an owner putting her up for adoption. I had three Vega dolls, but I sold Mei this year in order to finance the red haired Ferro (Miranda) that I adopted from my friend Susannah in London. I’m happy with the two I have and don’t need another. Another Ferro is always a possibility or some other designer that I’ve secretly loved. BUT, as of today, I have no money to adopt another and, even though I could squeeze in one or two, space is limited.

          The only thing I’ve got my eye on is what is called a Popmart Blythe. They’re very tiny and made by Popmart, a Japanese company that has an agreement with Blythe. Pretty inexpensive. I’d love to get one and try to customize it myself. But that’s a remote possibilty.

          Stay safe, Vicki.

          • How interesting! This Blythe world has really turned out to be an incredible one; again, I had no idea. I’ll have to learn about Popmart Blythe. Sounds like she’d be a space-saver, too. I hope you can get one. You could definitely customize a doll because you’re very artistic and not afraid of ‘surgery’ on a doll.

            • The Popmart Blythe has some markings that are very Japanese Pop – like. But they could be sanded out and I could go from there.

              xoxo

  19. Merry Christmas Claudia, Don and all the girls! Hope you have a restful and peaceful time.

    From my family in sunny, warm and no snow Canada to yours!

    X Chy

  20. A Happy and Healthy Christmas to Claudia, Don and all the readers on this site. Thank you for sharing your lives, it’s a wonderful place to visit.

    It’s still raining in North West England (nothing new😀) and looks to continue to do so into the New Year.

    I have managed to find The Bishop’s Wife on the BBC back catalogue so that today’s viewing sorted!

    All the best

  21. Merry, Merry Christmas to you and Don and ‘the girls’, Claudia. I don’t post often or visit much anymore. Hubby is not well and I am a full time caretaker at this point in life. I wish you both the very best and, I too, wish for peace for ALL of us. Blessings and love- Diana

    • hej, diana …

      i’m praying for you and your husband to have and enjoy much-improved health and healing, ease and happy times together now and always. and i hope there’s respite care/family members/friends who can help, too, especially if/when you need a break. take good care of yourself, too!

      hope you’re getting just the right amount of rain. we are in a long drought, down at least a foot of rain, where i live (iowa in the middle of the us) and i love rain so would enjoy some every day … but i obviously can’t make that happen so we make the best of things and work with what we have.

      merry Christmas and a better, health-full, happy new year to you and your husband.

      sending hugs (if okay),
      kathy

    • Oh dear Diana, I am sorry to hear this. We’ve known each other in this blogging world for a long time. My heart is with you this Christmas. Take care, my friend.

      Much love,
      Claudia

  22. Sending you the brightest wishes for a very Merry Christmas! The girls look darling (as always!). What a family you have created!

    Merriest!

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