The year of the dollhouses.

By some miracle, I made it happen. Santa brought both of my daughters dollhouses this year. It all sort of happened by happy coincidence. Then I thought I was barking mad. And I’ve finally landed back at happy – and grateful – that it all came together to bring some of the happiest smiles I’ve seen on Bee’s and Gracie’s faces for a long time. (Not to mention how nice that hour of quiet on Christmas morning while they played happily together – that was kind of nice, too.)

Gracie’s dollhouse is none other than a classic 1980′s Barbie Townhouse. Three floors (plus the option of converting the “roof” to the fourth floor) of some serious Barbie joyfun. I had one AND my sister had one when we were little and we played with those things to death. I had been stalking ebay and Craigslist for two years off-and-on, trying to snag a deal on one. Turns out that not only do Barbie Townhouses sell fast, but for a pretty penny, too. Those things were selling like hotcakes at $60, $70, $80 a pop. I love Gracie to death, but she could keep on using the old changing table as her Barbie house for those kind of prices. Luckily, when I was home on vacation I happened to mention to my aunt that I had been hunting a Barbie house for Gracie. Turns out, she was going through her attic and getting rid of some of my cousins’ toys. She was keeping Shaynie B.’s Barbies, but I was welcome to her old Barbie Townhouse. I was elated, and when it showed up in the mail a month later, I tucked the box away in my closet to use as Gracie’s big gift.

Both girls play with Barbies. I was tempted to give it to both girls. I very easily could have gotten away with that. The problem was, I didn’t know what sort of toys to buy for Bee this year. She’s still a bit young for the teeny, tiny pieces in Polly Pockets. Littlest Pet Shop was an option, but those animals kinda creep me out. I was browsing toys online when I found the Fisher Price Loving Family set. Rooms of furniture. LOTS of rooms. Assorted family members. And a dollhouse. A giant dollhouse that folded out into eight rooms and was roughly the same size as my pre-schooler. I wasn’t as instantaneously sold, but I started thinking…

You see, I remember getting my “real” dollhouse when I was about five-years-old. By “real” I don’t mean a wooden dollhouse that was built from a kit or anything. I believe it was called Better Homes or Little Home and Garden or something like that. The house itself was plastic, but it was incredibly detailed and so were the accessories. The bathroom had a teeny, tiny bar of Dial soap and a teeny, tiny razor. I’m talking tiny – I wouldn’t let my three-year-old play with pieces that tiny. For that matter, I’d hesitate to let Gracie lose play with them. But my mom let me and they were magical. I remember playing with it for hours. I remember arranging and rearranging the furniture. I remember saving my money to buy additional pieces and going to the one store (the now-abandoned Kay-Bee Toy Store with the red and white striped corrugated metal storefront) that carried them. Bee’s dollhouse looked sturdier, but just as detailed and the potential was too attractive to ignore.

So I committed. I told my family that she was getting the dollhouse. At $70 for the dollhouse alone, it was quite the commitment. Rooms ran about $20 each, which is pretty pricey. I was lucky enough to find a buy one, get one sale at Toys’R'Us, and the dollhouse itself marked down $20 the week after Black Friday. But what the heck, right? Can I put a price on what could be one of my daughter’s favorite childhood toys? My bubble burst when the furniture arrived. The quality was a little tackier than it looked online, and I was afraid I had blown everything. I was regretting my decision for such an overpriced gift right up until Christmas morning.

Bee enjoyed opening her presents and finding a few random rooms of furniture amongst her gifts. She had just found out the week before that we were giving her Little People sets away to children who don’t have toys and she was sad. Getting “big girl” dolls and furniture helped her come around to my point of view. Truly, Santa must know everything if he knew she needed “big girl” toys. But Gracie was upset because she hadn’t seen a Note. Santa always leaves a note thanking us for the cookies and milk and congratulating the girls on their accomplishments. He also tells them in a postscript that because they’ve been so good, he’s left an extra present in the front room. (When I was little, he left the special presents on the front porch.) Gracie insisted all morning that there was no Note to be found. She worried. She fretted. And when we were done with the pile under the tree, I made her search the counter better. Silly girl.

When the girls opened the door to the front room and their faces lit up (and their jaws dropped), my regrets vanished. “THERE ARE TWO HOUSES, MOMMY! WITH OUR NAMES ON THEM!” Truly, their own giant nametags seemed to be best part. I will make note of that for next year. Everything gets a giant nametag. And then they played and played and played and played. Maybe Bee’s gift was a little overpriced, but she loves it. And when does the younger child ever get a completely frivolous gift? When she hits the horrible tween years and starts listing every slight she’s suffered for the crime of having been born second, I hope she remembers this Christmas when she got a dollhouse with lots of new furniture just because she’s loved, without any consideration for whether there’s another child behind her who will also get good use out of it.

Seeing those smiling faces on Christmas morning, I’m pretty sure dollhouses are always the way to go.

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Tags: children, Christmas, dollhouse, parenting, toys