Flashback Friday - My Childhood Best Christmas Gift

Hard to believe that I posted this story five years. Not much has changed since then. This dollhouse is still in my basement, neglected but no less loved. 

I can’t remember the year, I’m just not that good, but I was probably five or six years old. Or maybe I was only four. Sometime that particular fall, my sister Pat and I were banished from the garage. I remember trying to peak in the window, but I just wasn’t tall enough. I remember wondering, wondering, wondering what could be going on in there. What was Dad doing in the garage late into the evening. Why wasn’t he spending nights on the couch watching TV with us like usual.

Christmas morning there was a note on the tree. Pat read it and her eyes grew larger. She ran for the basement stairs, and I naturally followed.

There it was at the bottom of the stairs. This wondrous dollhouse. a three-story A-frame with real stairs and built-in kitchen cabinets. Mom had made curtains for it and cardboard living room furniture, upholstered in real upholstery fabric. The kitchen floor was covered in the same linoleum as our kitchen upstairs.

And the adventures we would have. Or I should say, the adventures our dolls would have. We were only interlopers, giants manipulating their lives during the day. At night, we truly believed, their lives went on without us.

It’s in my basement now, and hasn’t been played with in years and years, as you can tell by the dust. Much to my dismay, Val never really played with it. Maybe because she didn’t have an older sister showing her the way. Or maybe coz Super Mario Brothers was just more exciting.

I don't know if any other little girls will ever play with my dollhouse. But as much as my husband gives me a hard time about getting rid of it, it's not going to go anywhere.