The Superior Express -

After Christmas thoughts turned to remembering special Christmas gifts from the past, including childhood years. It was during the week after Christmas while still on school vacation, that children got the chance to enjoy and play with their new Christmas gifts. I remember some of my special childhood Christmas gifts.

Of course, my sisters and I mostly received dolls. My dolls were nothing like the girls receive today as they didn’t talk, didn’t drink from a bottle and then had to have their diapers changed. They didn’t look like thin models with stylist clothes. They were loving baby dolls, that included a dress and sleepers, all wrapped up in a blanket. One year my sister received a cradle with her doll. One year I received a stroller with my doll. One year we received surprising gifts that included a robot with eyes that lit up. It was on rollers that let him move, and another surprise gift that year was a small metal ferris wheel. When the key was wound, it would go round and round as a real one did. Another year we received new metal lunch boxes to take our lunch to school. One had Roy Rogers on it and another was white with pretty flowers painted all over.

My sisters and I were blessed as for many years during our childhood, we had a playroom of our own where all of our toys were kept. We’d spend hours upstairs in our playroom. Along one wall, were book shelves that were the right height for us to get at our treasured books, comic books, coloring books and our wonderful treasured paper dolls. A small table with chairs was in the middle of the room where we could sit and play with our dolls, color in our coloring books, or even hold a tea party. We even had a tricycle in the room that we would ride around the room.

We loved to play with our paper dolls. Each was stored in their own folder that came with the dolls. When received for Christmas or birthdays, the folders were opened to reveal pages with the paper dolls and their clothing. The first job was to cut the paper dolls and their clothes out. The paper dolls were of comic, television and movie characters. Some of my favorites were of the Lennon Sisters from the Lawrence Welk television show, Roy and Dale Rogers, and all of the characters of the Li’l Abner comic strip. Our paper dolls doubled one year, when an older girl friend decided she was too old for paper dolls and we were gifted hers. Once in a while, my sister and I would decide we wanted to create our own designed paper dolls. We would get ahold of an older catalog, cut out one of the dress models and then make their clothes out of dresses and other outfits included in the catalog.

Those were special childhood memories. I’m sure others remember heir favorites also this time of year.