Velvet 002
Originally uploaded by wickeddollz

When I was little we had no money, seriously not knowing how we were getting food on the table .I'm not asking for sympathy btw that’s just how life was. I didn't actually realize we had less than most until I was an adult and realized that pancakes for dinner wasn't a treat it was because all we had was flour & eggs and maybe some brown sugar LOL.
Well one year when I was in about grade 2 or 3 my dad finally got a really good job. We bought a house we had “things”. That Christmas was dream like for me.

We didn’t believe in Santa I had always known that the things in my stocking and under the tree were from my parents. I knew that they had to pay for them, and although I never FELT poor I was acutely aware that things cost money and that money was not easy to come by.

That year my brother and I had done what all Children of that era did, lay on the living room floor searching through the Sear Wishbook marking the things we wanted for Christmas. I had seen commercials (at a friends home mind you we had not TV till I was 13 … but that’s another story) for Beautiful Velvet with her growing blond hair, adorable purple velvet outfit, and amazing violet eyes. I wanted her so badly, but realized she was an expensive doll.

So we marked up the catalogue made our wishes, dreamed our dreams and truly did not expect to get any of the things we asked for. That’s not nearly as sad as it may sound. Learning to dream about things you want and window shopping is still one of my favourite things to do. My kids have learned this simple pleasure too.

That Christmas morning was like something out of a movie for me. When my brother and I woke up at the crack of dawn and raced down stairs there in the living room was virtually EVERYTHING we had asked for. I remember just stopping the door way and staring dumb founded. I had never in my life gotten EVERYTHING I had asked for, and there in the centre of the room was Velvet in her funky box, perfect and pristine.

This truly was the one magical X-mas of my life, and what I think of when people say Christmas.


Velvet lived with me for many years, but finally went the way of most toys of our youth. She left me in a yard sale, and I hope made some other little girls as happy as she had made me.
I was as pleased as that first Christmas when a dear friend of mine sent me one of her collection after reading my story. She now stays in my collection smiling her knowing smile and being just as beautiful as she was that first Christmas morning she found me.


So that being said, what is you one “real Present” that stayed with you through the years? Not physically but the one toy you will hold in your heart forever? What memory makes you smile? What magic moment that allows you to be little again? Mine is a Christmas story but your might be a birthday or Chanukah or any other holiday. Come on share the magic!