Traditions

My family has a lot of them. The Valentine's Day "Heart Trail," the Thanksgiving "Cousin Picture," the New Year's "Sparkling Cider," the watching of the various holiday specials that come on every year, and, today's topic:

Christmas Dollhouse, which should be taking place as you read this.

Every year this time, I get out my plastic Fisher-Price mansion and Sarah lugs out hers, and my mom gets out the blocks. We lay out all the people and furniture and go through it like a draft. Sometimes things get a bit testy, like when Sarah tries to pick Jack. JACK IS MINE. HE'S ALWAYS BEEN MINE. Or when I try to get the bed that has actual box springs, because that's technically Sarah's and she could take it if she wanted to.

But in the end when all that's left are the undesirables, we go off and set up our houses. Sarah and I arrange furniture, my mom builds her family's living quarters with blocks and random things around the room. {Her houses are always the best, even though she has nothing to work with.} We all assign our characters names, ages and personalities, set the timeline a week before Christmas, and get going.

There is usually a Christmas special.

A college-age sibling usually come home.

Usually the kids visit a park, made from the Playground Equipment paraphernalia.

There is usually a dollhouse-sibling fight.

There is always Christmas decorating of the dollhouses, done by the dolls.

And there is always, ALWAYS a Parade.

We each take a shoebox or a plastic tub and decorate it for Christmas. {I have a Santa collection, so I usually share some of them for the cause.} The shoeboxes are dollhouse parade floats. We also make extra floats and put the reject dollpersons on them so they don't feel left out.

Then we connect the shoebox floats with string and tape and attach a dollhorse to the front. We pull the horse, and the whole freakin' parade moves, just like with real flesh-and-blood people parades.

The last dollhouse scene is Christmas Day, when the kids are happy and the presents are opened. {Oh yeah, we wrap dollpresents too. Little teensie CD players and balls and TVs in real wrapping paper.} It's always very jolly and adorable.

Then we clean up and look forward to the next Christmas.

I don't care how far I go, or how busy I become, or how old I get. I am coming home and we are playing Christmas Dollhouse every year. Maybe one day my daughters and nieces will play with us.

But, hey, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

~Stephanie