Christmas Party!

To the Mothers, Grandmothers, and Doll Collectors who read my blog, I hope you enjoy this fun "from a Doll's Perspective" story.  I've been sewing a lot of 18" doll Christmas dresses lately and thought I'd take a little break and write a fun post to go along with the dresses.  I know Christmas time can get busy, so I hope this gives you a moment to take a deep breath, and just enjoy a story!  

"Mom, it's finally here!" Emily yelled as she ran in the house from getting the mail!  "It's from Paula.  It must be the invitation!"

Emily had been watching the mailbox everyday since her best friend Paula had told her that her parents were allowing her to have a Christmas Party at their house.   But this wasn't just any Christmas Party, it was going to be a "formal" party.   All the guests were to dress up in fancy formal dresses!  They would eat dinner at the dinning room table using the "good" dishes and silverware and even have cloth napkins.  It was going to be very fancy!   And Paula was sending each of her friends an invitation through the mail to invite them the party!

Finally.  The invitation had arrived!  In reality her best friend Paula had just told her about the party 3 days ago.  But Emily was so excited that she'd started watching the mailbox that same day.  She wanted to see the invitation and get the details about the party as soon as possible!  

Even though Emily was in a hurry to open the invitation, so also didn't want to tear the invitation and envelope, so she made herself slow down to carefully open the envelope.  She got it open and gently pulled out the invitation.  The outside of the card was beautiful!  There was a picture of a girl standing outside next to a pine tree with fluffy white snow gently swirling around her!  The "snow" was made from glitter, so the card sparkled.   Emily stood for a moment just looking at the invitation card.

Inside she read:
Emily Thomson is cordially invited to Paula Anderson's formal Christmas Party on Saturday December 16, 2023 at 4pm.  Meal will be served at 4:30pm.  Come dressed in Christmas formal attire.

It then went on to give Paula's address.

Emily's mom was smiling as she watched her daughter open and read the invitation.  Now, Emily looked up at her mom and said: "Can I get a new Christmas dress, Mom?"

"We can go shopping on Friday." Emily's mom replied.  "It will be your dress for church for the Christmas Eve service, too."

At that, Emily ran to her room to call Paula and let her know that she'd gotten the invitation!  They talked nonstop for almost an hour, until their mom's told them they needed to get off the phone; it was time for supper.

Now she had to wait until Friday, to shop for her dress.  But Friday finally came and Emily's mom picked her up from school and they went shopping for a Christmas dress.  The first store they went to didn't have anything that Emily liked, so they went to another clothing store.   There were a few dresses that Emily liked and tried on there, but they still weren't quite what she had in mind.  They were about to leave that store, but some fabric sticking out from a rack caught her attention and she walked over to see what it was.  As soon as she saw it, she gasped!  The dress was beautiful!

The fabric that had caught her eye was a sheer fabric with sparkly silver dots, red and white candy canes and peppermints and sparkly silver ribbon trimmed at the hem.

As she pulled the dress out, she discovered that underneath the sheer fabric was a solid red fabric that was also used for the bodice of the dress.  The sleeves were made from the same sparkly sheer fabric!  Emily couldn't take her eyes off this dress.   Emily's mom encouraged her to go tried it on.

A few minutes later Emily stepped out of the dressing room so her mom could see the dress on her.  Emily's eyes sparked with excitement!  She loved this dress!  Emily swirled around so her mom could see the whole dress!  

Emily's mom paid for the dress and Emily clutched the bag tightly as they walked out to the car.  Now she really couldn't wait for the party. 

Emily decided not to tell anyone what the dress looked like, so that it would be a surprise for the party.  It was very hard to wait, though.  She had to bite her tongue a few times as she almost told Paula this or that about the dress. 

Finally Dec. 16th came!  Emily got dressed up in her new Christmas dress and her mom drove her over to Paula's house.

Everyone was dressed up and it was so much fun to see what everyone's dresses looked like.  They all ooh'ed and ahh'ed over each other's dresses.  

Paula's mom had decorated the dinning room table with a cloth table cloth, cloth napkins folded to look like Christmas trees, pretty dishes with gold color on the edges, real glass drinking dresses with pink lemonade in each glass, and a small mini Christmas tree in the center of the table.  

The food was good.  Paula's mom had cooked a ham and made mashed potatoes and green beans.  There was also a salad and for desert there was cherry pie!

After the dinner the girls talked for awhile about school, their plans for Christmas break and their dresses.  Then they watched a Christmas movie!

It was a wonderful Christmas Party, and Emily and all the girls had so much fun!

From a Doll's Prespective

Hi Everyone, it's me Kellie, the American Girl Doll!

 Hi mom's and grandma's, I'm back to tell you what I get to do today!  I hope it gives you ideas for fun things to do with your daughter/granddaughter and her doll/s.

I'm going to bake something!.  Today I got a fun and pretty new apron to wear and now I want to bake something so that I can use the apron!  I debated between baking a cake, or making sugar cookies.  Then again maybe an apple pie would be fun to make!  What do you think I should make?   What would you make with your daughter and her doll?

Well, I have a sweet tooth, so it's got to be something sweet and tasty. :) 

Hmmm..... okay, I think I've decided on the sugar cookies!  They sound really good, and I have my very own new rolling pin to roll the dough out with!  Plus, this way I can have fun decorating them with frosting, which I couldn't do with the apple pie.  Yes, I could decorate a cake, but I'm hungry for cookies!

I will use heart cookie cutters!  I found a set of tiny heart shaped cookie cutters that are great for me: doll sized!!

 Since I'm going to make sugar cookies, that means I will also make buttercream frosting and dye it shades of pink and red (well red is really hard to dye frosting but at least a really dark pink that's almost red!).  

First I'm going to mix the ingredients for the cookie dough and roll it out on the kitchen table.  I took the table cloth off the kitchen table, and washed off the whole table.  Now I'm going to use my rolling pin to roll out the cookie dough.  Then it's time to use the cookie cutters! (Yay!) These tiny cookie cutters come in a few sizes of hearts, so I'm going to make some in each size!  I carefully cut the dough using the heart cutters and then gently peel them off the cutter and place them on the greased cookie sheet, so they will be ready for mom to put in the oven!

We set the timer when we put them in the oven, because we don't want them to burn.  And since they are so small they would burn quickly if we leave them in too long, so we are being very careful not to leave them in longer then necessary.

Next it's time to make the frosting! Yummy!  These sugar cookies are going to have buttercream frosting.  I measure out and stir together the ingredients.  After it's stirred up well, I divide the frosting into multiple bowls and then I add different colors of food coloring to each bowl.  It's fun to stir the frosting with the food coloring in it and watch the white frosting turn into swirls of color and white.  Then as I continue to stir the frosting it all changes into the color I wanted it to be!  It's so much fun to do this! 

Now to decorate the sugar cookies!  With some of them I'm going to carefully spread frosting on them with a knife and then put sprinkles on them.  But on some of them I'm going to put the frosting on frosting bags with decorating tip on the end to make fun star prints and designs on the cookies.  Mom helps me learn how to hold the bag correctly so that the frosting doesn't come out of the top.  With my mom's help they come out looking really pretty!  We used a few different frosting tips so that they would make different designs on the cookies.

The cookies all came out looking so pretty, and they were really good to eat!  We shared them with the rest of the family and everyone liked them!  Mom put some in a container so we could enjoy them for the next few days!  (But I don't know if they will last that long!)

As I make the cookies, I'm going to pretend that I'm back in the 1930's and cooking with Kit, because my apron is a retro 1930's style.  It covers the whole front of me, so I don't get flour and eggs, or frosting on my clothes.  The fabric has pretty butterflies on it, and the bottom is flared and a pretty pink!

Hi mom's and grandma's, as you teach your daughter/granddaughter to cook and bake, you can add to the fun with matching girl and doll aprons!  Yes, that's right, there is also a child's apron that matches the doll apron.  They can be purchased in Tracy's eBay store!  Within the store, go to the "Matching girl & Doll category to see all the matching outfits/items currently available!

Create heartfelt memories with your child/grandchild that they will cherish throughout their lifetime!  Sure, at the moment they won't realize they are creating lifetime memories, but in reality that's what is happening!  Have so so much fun baking and cooking together!