Historical Clothes Reviews: Addy's Sunday Best and 30th Anniversary Mini Doll

Addy with Mini Addy is the cutest thing you've ever seen and you know it.

Let's get the news out of the way first. Yes, I have seen Melody Ellison. I stayed up well past 6 am Monday morning¹ to watch the CBS This Morning video off their YouTube site. I read the article with the pictures. I saved the pictures to my hard drive. I squealed so fucking loud I was worried for a hot second that I might wake up the Bae.

I have seen Melody Ellison, our 1960s BeForever Girl, and she is absolutely goddamn fucking gorgeous and no one can tell me otherwise. She has the flipped pressed textured hair, she has the cutie-patootie Sonali Mold--which I adore just as much as the Addy mold--she has an awesome plaid dress and yes I will be inspecting my DeeDees for the best dress with matching plaids, and she has big brown eyes that I could get lost in. She has a March in '63 pin²  and a kickass hat and bright blue pajamas and a recording studio. Between her and the HamilTome that's coming out this summer, I just will have to remain on the broke side of money outside of my bills. The funeral for my wallet was held Monday night. In lieu of flowers which die too fast, send funds to the Melody Ellison Day One Fund. Thank you.

I keep waving at her and calling her pretty girl, and the gang here is super excited to have her. Addy can't wait to have another member of the Black Historical Club. Ellie is excite to meet her and share science and stuff. Otters thinks she's going to have awesome clothes, Shanna wants to know as much about the music as she can.³ Dorothy is eager to meet more black kids. And Edith? Edith just realized she is like Felicity and Melody is her Elizabeth.⁴ Their relationship will be so Radical. I didn't expect a new face mold--AG tried that with Marie-Grace and while there is nothing wrong with the MG mold, the circumstances of the situation has likely made AG gun shy on pulling for another mold. Her without dimples is fine. Her hair is straight because in the 60s girls didn't wear naturals--they pressed their hair all the live long day. If you had read the book you'd know that her mom sorta has a mini-shock when her oldest daughter wears her hair in a fro. It wasn't the style--Black and Proud was still working its way into the system.

And if you're whining mewling and puking that Melody looks too much like Cécile because they have the same face mold, you can get smacked by the same picture I put up on my IG: #AGIG Racist Logic. The first three girls all has the same face--first four when you include Felicity--and the Classic Mold has more dolls than any other mold released. There's more blond haired blue eyed Classic Mold Dolls about in the moddie line than there are black historical characters ever released. If you have more than two Classic Mold white dolls in your collection but you think Melody looks too much like Cécile to have around, then you need to enema the racism out of your brain and go cleanse your soul and wash your ass. Same if you're whining about her textured hair as being too fuzzy or frizzy. I will harbor no quarter. No County for Old and Young Racists.

So that's the Melody news, and it's got me bouncing off the walls. I'm itching for her so much. The last time I wanted something this badly I french kissed a girl. (We both liked it.)

To today's review because I can't review any Melody stuff til she's out.⁵ Today we're covering one of my most liked outfits for Addy FirstArrival Walker. Back in the far-flung era of 2008, I had been kicked from two, count em two boards and been stabbed in the back by the person that had been my best friend. So I wasn't in the best of contentment in the AG fandom. I still had AG > 18 though, and so when some new shit hit that September, I still got news on it. Among the plethora of things were Kit's New School set, Ruthie's Super Fug Holiday Dress, Felicity's even more Fug Fuckawful Gala Dress, Sam's Velvet Dress that would only last a few months before AG flipped the script and put her in the vault, the Moddie Meet Outfit change to the Star Hoodie set...

...and a set for Addy which I geeked about because Addy hadn't had new clothes since that damned African Dance Outfit. Addy's Sunday Best had a black felt decorated hat and purple print dress and I got it as part of a fall order a couple months later after getting what I wanted from Sam's then-retiring collection. The set was $24 when I ordered it but had eked up to $28 by the time it was coded into the Wiki in 2009, where it has stayed. This year, it even got a mini form in representation in AG's 30 year anniversary mini dolls--sans hat, and with the new shoes Addy wears nowadays. Advertisements originally had this as made by Ruth Walker for her daughter to look cute on Sundays, and I can dig it because Ruth Walker is that kinda momma. The outfit originally had no story ties at all, but with the BeForever recovers, the outfit is seen on the cover of Volume Two of Addy's central stores/Classic Volumes, A Heart Full of Hope. Which is tons better than having the cover of her birthday book have her Stilting Outfit in the revamp, an LE set that was hard as burnt buns to get. Seriously AG, what were you thinking?

Outfit, then mini. Addy's wearing her Classic Meet shoes and stockings because that is how we started and that is where we're staying.

Historical Clothes Reviews and Historical Accessories: Addy's Tartan Plaid Dress, Ida Bean Doll, LE Mini Doll, and Sweet Potato Pudding Kit

Merry Giftmas, AddyWalker!

Merry Fucking Giftmas to all my readers, lurkers, lovers, haters, and hangers-on. And that's not sarcasm, that's exuberant joyful cursing.

Normally, I don't do back to back day posts, hence my holiday series reviews going to carry into January. It's stressful on me, and I get tired and feel like I'm flooding you with too much data. I always worry I'm going on and on about shit no one cares about when I get into The Doll Zone. But today is Giftmas, and Giftmas is very important to my AG collecting. Because, if you haven't read the story before or spent any time on this blog, let me remind you. Christmas Morning, 2005 was when I got my first AG doll ever after wanting one since I was kinda around eight or nine and falling in love with Addy when I was thirteen: Aduke "Addy" FirstArrival Walker.¹ I was 25 years old, and my mother- and father-in-law² got me her, her meet accessories, her nightgown with her heartwarmer and slippers, the hair kit, her work dress, and her Tartan Plaid Dress. I cried, people. I fucking sobbed when I got her and I'm not ashamed. I immediately changed her into the dress and she was so pretty that I swear she glowed in my arms. I cuddled her all day and eventually started snuggling in the bed with her every single night. Every year, she gets into her dress for the holidays. Even last year, when some shit went down through my family--the December after I got laid off that March--and I thus had a miserable, shaken holiday season , I changed Addy into her dress because she just has to get dressed. It's as much a tradition now as fucking around on the internet and staying up ridiculous hours. Addy is the leader of my gang, she is bossy and she is brilliant and she is cocky and better than your blond and/or blue eyed moddies and she doesn't have to share her collection with anyone except maybe her bestie Sarah because fuck you, that's why.

Yes, that's right, I started with one doll and one holiday set, and eight years later I have twenty-six gang members and enough AG holiday stuff that it takes a calculated effort to do the holidays and some people have to change outfits twice. Aw yiss.

The Tartan Dress came out the same year Addy did in time for Holiday 1993, and originally cost $22 but has since been bumped up to $28 because gas ain't less than a dollar anymore. And at the time, she also had

• a holiday food craft set, the Sweet Potato Pudding Set for $16: cast iron spider, glazed  mixing bowl, spoon, faux holly spring, and recipe
• a doll, Ida Bean, for $18 (originally $15)
• and a craft set, the Needlework Kit and Lamp. for $18: Plastic and metal oil lamp, plain apron, embroidery floss, needle book with needles, wooden hoop, and instructions.

Everything else has been retired--the kit in 2002, the needlework kit and lamp in about 2005-2006, and Ida Bean just this year in 2013. But her dress still stands for the holidays. AG sort of wants you to want to get holiday wear for dolls, and so they almost never retire a holiday set if the historical character is still there to wear it.³ And I have almost every bit of Addy's Holiday collection. I got Ida Bean off eBay for $15 with shipping since the cost was cheaper than AG's costs at the time within months of getting Addy; since she's retired her price has almost doubled but I'm sure with patience you can get her for a good cost. I paid $75 for the complete, unused Sweet Potato Pudding Kit from private purchase in 2012 because Addy and I are spoiled absolutely rotten by my husband, and on eBay it goes for about that much when it shows up complete. My needlework set is a mishmash of stuff. I got the authentic apron from someone for about $10, I scanned someone's instruction book and needle book, I have so many needles I lose and replace them on a regular basis, and I took my ass to Joann Crafts and Micheal's and picked out embroidery floss and a wooden hoop for maybe 6 bucks in total. I just don't have the lamp.  But that will change when I finally focus on eBay and find a good knock off. So it's not going to be a review so much as a Crafting Creatively and adaptation.

Order is: Dress set, Ida Bean, Mini Addy, and Sweet Potato Pudding Kit. Of course I have the LE Mini Doll. She was the first I got, as soon as she was released. So this bonus? Is me showing some of my fancy cooking. I'm way too good to you.

Historical Clothes Reviews: Rebecca's Hanukkah Dress and LE Mini Doll

Marisol doesn't celebrate Hanukkah, but she does celebrate nice clothes.

Yesterday was Yule--which is my religious holiday as an eclectic pagan. The Winter Solstice is the longest night of the year, and many pagans celebrate with bonfires, holly and ivy, keeping the lights on, and reminding ourselves that though the darkness seems long and endless, from this day on the circle gets brighter and the days get longer. Celebrate the reason for the season--Our Lady of Darkness Persephone spending the winter with her husband and lover, Hades, in the Underworld.¹

Among my gang of AG girls, I have a major pagan and her younger sister, a faithful Roman Catholic, several nominal Christians, A gang member who feels Episcopalian, and some that really don't give a shit about Christianity beyond the cultural influence. However, I don't have any Jewish or Muslim girls. I have a mild fascination with Judaism the same way I have one with Islam or Catholicism, in that I like to study and learn about faiths not my own. I already know enough about Protestant/Non-denominational Christianity, being raised in it partially, and eventually chose to make a deconversion in my 20s. I own a copy of the Tanakh and read it in college, and will probably read it again, especially if I eventually have a Jewish gang member. But I don't purport to know everything about the faith.

American Girl was pretty lackluster on the Jewish front for some time. At first all they had was a Hannukah outfit and accessories which, despite a reformation at one point, have hung on through the years--and been misused by many people.² Then there was Lindsey Bergman, Girl of the Year 2001-2002 who had one book which mentions that her older brother is having his bar mitzvah. Her traits are more like what TV Tropes calls Informed Judaism: a marker here and there but nothing really Jewish, more Jewish in opposition to Christianity. Then in 2009 after the removal of Pretty Princess 'Mantha, we got her replacement: Rebecca Rubin, a Russian-Jewish girl living in post-Titanic era New York City. Rebecca wasn't just nominally Jewish: her family keep the traditions and so does she and while she is only one example of living Jewish in Eastern Immigrant America era, she does it in a lovely way. I did pick up "Rebecca" soon after she came out, but only to customize into another historical I had planned as she was the perfect look for the job. And since Marisol Luna--my pretty Latina dancer--had started to find a love of early 1900s clothes, I gave her Rebecca's meet wear and started getting Rebecca's clothes for her here and there. Rebecca feels a major level of awkwardness in the US and the pressure to assimilate to the dominant faith by her peers. One of Rebecca's books that best show her discomfort is Candlelight for Rebecca, where she and her classmate Rose try to explain to the teacher that they don't want to participate in making Christmas decorations, but are told by the teacher that since Christmas is a national holiday, everyone celebrates it, and thus pushed into doing things that don't make her feel right or comfortable.³ Rebecca's grandparents assure her that she is free to feel discomfort and not want to do Christmas things, because Christmas is a Christian holiday, and tell the signifigance of and celebrating it in America freely, and it all works out for her.

For Hanukkah, Rebecca has a dress she loves wearing for the holidays, and it is quite relevant to her stories. Rebecca's Hanukkah Dress consists of a a purple striped dress with white sleeves and collar, a woven embroidered hairbow, cream tights, and cream shoes; the set was released the September after her release and just in time for the holidays. The current cost is $32 direct from AG--it was $28 when it came out, but costs rising and all. It's on eBay, and most of the prices are not a good one. Why are you on eBay for this? Just buy it from AG. I paid Gift for it--that is, in a holiday swap this was gifted to me.

Since I don't have Rebecca, Marisol Luna will be modeling Rebecca's wear for you, but they share face molds so it works. Marisol would have had three clothes changes, but Tara and I came to an understanding. My Marisol is a lot like book!Marisol, with the noted traits here of being a little ditzy, a touch snippy, allergic to chocolate, in love with Disney princesses, and beautiful with languages. And also being Felicity's first crush here, because she looks like a Latina version of Felicity's Dear Elizabeth. Like the others, this review contains LE Mini Rebecca.

Historical Clothes Reviews: Samantha's Cranberry Party Dress and LE Mini Doll

Holiday Party Time with Tara Johnson!

Holy Baby Mithras, it's a week til Giftmas. Last minute purchases abound. If you haven't ordered it online, it's not going to get there before the holidays unless you rush that shipping.¹ If you haven't got it in the store, you might not get it cause the shelf could be cleared out. And if you didn't get Molly and Emily before they sold out, then hie your ass to eBay cause they're gone, and their stuff with em. Play Taps, y'all. This is why, if you are sensible like me, you make all of December and the first two weeks in January extended holiday gifting, so that if things don't get there day of, everything isn't spoiled.

As I said in my complaint department about Molly and Emily heading out the door, while they won't be available from AG direct there's ways of getting your hands on stuff post retirement. Molly's second ed Floral PJs and Yellow Bed might be a little harder since they were only out for a year. But the stuff that had been out since 1986? Take your time, you'll find a bargain. I got a lot of the Samantha stuff I have for my gang post retirement. Like today's review.

The Cranberry Party Dress --also known as Samantha's Christmas Dress--was released with Samantha Parkington back when she was released in 1986 along with her meet stuff, school dress and supplies², and extra holiday gear--all fresh and new for 1986, ready to become the icon of American Girl for the next decade and a half. The outfit came with a red slightly high waist (for the fashion) dress with lace trim, ribbed white tights, and one of Samantha's signature ribbons to tie enormously into her hair--this one white with v-cut ends. Purchasers were expected to use Samantha's meet shoes with the set. When Mattel took over, they changed the ribbed thicker tights to thinner, white generic AG tights. The original cost of the dress was $20; as inflation costs rose, the dress went up to $22 before being retired in 2008 with Samantha's archival. I got the dress--a PC version--in Spring 2009 in a private sale from a friend. I think it was about $20 for the dress alone. I originally had plain white tights from buying Samantha's Shoes and Socks set, but at some point I got the ribbed white tights from a private gift before I was message board destroyed. The shoes came with Tara--our model--back when she first arrived, and the hairbow is my own doing, a long length of wide white ribbon cut just so. On eBay prices range from $10 to well over $50, though the average selling price is about what it was for retail with maybe $5 over. 

A bit more about Tara: Tara Johnson was sent to me by a buddy as a gift back in September 2009 to join the gang. She arrived in a homemade dress, with Samantha's meet shoes, black stockings, and bloomers, with her hair in four awesome hair wraps and needing a set of glasses and a good bath. And while she does look like a PC Samantha, she will adamantly inform you that she, madam or sir or miscter³ or neither, that she is not Samantha. She almost didn't put this dress on, in case anyone wanted to get bright ideas about calling her so. But when I explained that it wasn't fair for Marisol to have to do three clothes changes for the holidays--Marisol being my go-to-model for Edwardian and Titanic Era wear--she grudgingly said she'd put the set on. But she will only wear Edwardian clothing if she doesn't take off her glasses, lest you mistake her for anyone but her nerdy, steampunky self.

Do note that there will be two tights reviews, along with the bonus of Samantha's bloomers, meet shoes, and the LE Mini Doll. And that most of the pictures are taken with the plainer tights. Damn it, Samantha.

Historical Clothes Reviews: Cécile's Special Dress and LE Mini Doll

Joyeux Noël from Cécile Rey!

So as you've noticed, every other day brings you a new holiday review. Because not only do moddies all have holiday outfits left and right, so do the Historicals. This is because all the historicals ended up with some sort of holiday in the winter to have them have something specific for parents to look at and go "That's the holiday dress! Put them in it!" thus making holiday shopping easy as fuck. Kaya got Generic Winter Giving Holiday with her adorned dress, Kirsten initially mixed it up with St. Lucia's Day and a wreath¹ and Rebecca holds down the entire Hanukkah front. Julie got Chinese New Year even though her entire collection focuses on the incredibly awkward holiday tea with her father. Every historical at least skimmed near the winter holidays at some point--or faked it, as the case is with Kaya.

And then along came Cécile Rey and Marie-Grace Gardner, two girls over six books. Because heaven, the Summerlands, and the Gardens forfend they just, you know, give a black girl her own series without her white companion. People might mistake her for Addy or think she's worthy or something. (I really wish Marie-Grace had been left out altogether, or demoted to Best Friend.) Their six book split doesn't even dance near the holidays, what with focusing primarily on the 1853 yellow fever epidemic in New Orleans and the fallout of that as it affected their families and lives. (There is a mention of Christmas in the start of the books, as it is post holiday season--what with their new fashion of the Christmas tree--and then at the end of Book 6.)

While Marie-Grace is boring to me, I adore Cécile. Cécile Rey is a rich black girl in 1850s New Orleans--much better off than Marie-Grace. The fact she is really got some white collector's bloomers twisted because Cécile is black, free, rich, and friends with a white girl. And the way they teach history in this country is so shitty, spotty, and whitewashed that there are generations of people who claim to be educated but believe that black people before 1865 were all slaves and that rich black people are historical anomalies or unrealistic and they certainly would have never been friends with white people lest they be turned into slaves by proxy or something. As Cécile spits at the American idiots in the candy store, she is gens de couleur libres, or a free person of color. Free blacks were not only in New Orleans but everywhere, and have been since the start of the US. Don't go saying stupid shit. She's a goddamn smartass and her first bold act in the books is to basically say "fuck you whitey, don't think you're better than me, I'm free black and if you insult the wrong people in this town we will take your white Américain ass down to the motherfucking ground." Ahem. Go girl.

Still the two girls needed fancy dress. So the two got "special" wear, which can pretty much be considered their holiday wear. Marie-Grace got her Party Outfit, and Cécile got her Special Dress: a set consisting of a red patterned ribbon trimmed dress, white pearl necklace, and matching velvet hair ribbons. Technically she doesn't wear this for the holidays; she wears it when she recites a poem at a benefit for the orphanages in the city in the wake of the yellow fever epidemic. But AG pimps it as holiday wear and holiday wear it is.

As soon as I saw Cécile I declared that she must be mine a la Igor from Dork Tower. I originally had planned to pick her up day of but then they tossed in a preorder bonus of a small set of paper dolls, and I decided that was better than having to go pick her up after work on a Tuesday. Tuesday, when I was working, was my Monday and thus my most bitchy of days and I didn't want to have to cuss a motherfucker out. Cécile got here about a week after official release; I preordered her, every outfit available for her at the time other than the Masked Ball wear,² and then went to AG Seattle and traded in the single book for the six book series and got to reading and all that. The Special Dress cost $28, and still costs that much except for sales. For some reason it is currently not available off the site at the time of this writing, but I suspect that it will go back into stock and not just be abruptly retired out of nowhere. Shit, it better not be. On eBay it appears to be going for less than that, likely because of all the sales MG and Cécile have been having on their collection. I'm sure it might stay there on eBay, barring this temporary sell out being a total retirement whereupon the prices will jack the entire fuck up. 

The double proof that this is her holiday wear is that it's what her LE mini doll is wearing when it was released--though, since there was no holiday book, her mini book is an abridged copy of Meet Cécile. There was a mini book with every LE, and yes I have them, and no, I'll discuss that when I discuss Mini dolls and not a blog post before.

Historical Clothes Reviews and Historical Accessories: Kit's Christmas Outfit, Aviator Doll, and LE Mini Doll

Merry Christmas from Kit Kittredge!

There are no major holidays today. Well, there's a feast day for a saint but I'm pretty sure there's a feast day for a saint every day of the year so we're going skip most of those for sanity's sake. Instead we will talk about traditions, briefly. Everyone has one or another for the holidays, even if they don't say it. Some people throw the tree up as soon as the turkey is cool, some wait til the first of December, some wait until a week before. Some get the tree out of the house as soon as everything is over and some wait til the first. Some people insist on Christmas morning in pajamas, or not opening presents before the whole family is there, or opening in semi-private. Some do new pajamas on Christmas Eve. Some let the kids tear through everything first before the adults, and some go around in birth order and one at a time until everything is open. For years, we opened everything at midnight, had a blast until about two in the morning, went to sleep, woke up, and then went to my paternal grandfather's for Christmas dinner and gifts and all that stuff from them. And by the time I was six or so, I recognized that the toys and gifts from "Santa" were the ones from Toys from Tots, because I grew up poor enough to qualify. That's why, in part, I try to donate to them every year--and try to do something name brand. People who do the cheap, off brand toys because they think poor kids don't notice are jerks and should choke on a stocking.

Nowadays my traditions consist of remembering to put up the tree--this year there's only the tabletop one, since I'm in a transitional phase--my husband and I hitting up Cyber Monday Sales to get TV series we like on the cheap, and me blowing about a hundred or so bucks on AG's Cyber Monday because half price AG stuff is the goddamn bomb. I'll probably make more when I do finally sprog out, but that's pretty much how it's going. Yes, I'm going somewhere with this. Let me babble.

Kit Kittredge had her own traditions too--Christmas waffles, lighting up the tree, and her mom and her going out with Ruthie and her mom to downtown Cincinnati for the whole the day after Christmas and going to lunch at a fancy restaurant and a show. She was thrown for a loop during the course of her books because of the impact the Depression had on her family--for one, the power bill was hard to pay, presents were scarce, the phone bill wasn't even paid, and there were borders in the house. And she was pretty pissy when Ruthie's solution to "I don't have a new dress to wear on some fancy date with you, baby, I got real problems" was "How about you wear my old one from last year and we'll pay for the whole date?"¹ And rightfully so, because Kit's issues were deeper than a new dress, seeing as they were looking at eviction. But, like AG books often do, everything was wrapped up nice by the end and she and Ruthie kissed and made up and gave each other gifts and were back together at the end--and then in Really Truly Ruthie Ruthie, not wanting her girlfriend² to lose her house, went on the train to Kentucky and got the money from Aunt Millie. On that note, fuck Uncle Hendrick's rich old selfish ass. Selfish people like him are the reason we're in the shit we're in right now. But politics. Anyways, after they make up, Kit accepts the red dress as hers, and she and Ruthie still go out on their date the next day.

Margaret Mildred "Kit" Kittredge was released in 2000, the first Mattel released Historical. So if you ever hear someone talking about how AG was so much better when it was PC and all characters after Mattel suck, and then claim that Kit was a PC character, they're a stupid moron and you have my permission to throw mini dolls at them until they shut their face. I actually was very reluctant against Kit because eh, blond dolls are so not my thing. But then I read her story and warmed up to her because if there is one thing I can ID with from my childhood, it's wearing old clothes and struggling to pay bills and threats of evictions and people thinking their charity is accepted when it's half assed or really condescending as fuck. I ain't too proud to beg, to modify the meaning of the TLC song. But some well-to-do-people think anything they give you is to be appreciated because they were generous enough to give anything at all, and that's how you get pumpkin pie filler and endless rice along with mock-Barbies with cracked legs and yo-yos that break four minutes later. But I digress. Kit joined the gang in 2007 when I moved to where I am now--her last family left her behind, and when she saw the new folks moving in also involved people her height, she became part of the recently renamed AGGiB.³ Here, she's what I call a 50% Modern--she bounces back and forth between her 1930s clothes and modern clothes, and likes a computer over a typewriter. So--even though they wouldn't be Wiki refs--you might see her in a modern set here and there.  What can she say? Jeans are nice.

Like Josefina before her, Kit's Christmas Outfit (or Kit's Holiday Outfit, because she technically wears it post Christmas proper) was released with her Fall 2000 along with her first three books, so that you could have her all cute for the holidays--and like Josefina, I ordered her holiday wear in 2007 so she could look her very best for Giftmas in the new place. The set consists of the red dress, a red polka dotted hairbow, white net stockings, and black t-strap shoes. Originally, the Scottie pin was a separate piece, but now it comes as a button permanently attached to the dress and that's the version I got. Or, it was attached. You'll see. I paid $24 dollars for it but, again, prices rose and the cost is now $32. Unless you've got a hard on for the Scotty pin with the magnet and can't mod it yourself--and it's really easy to do if you're not incompetent--there's no reason to bother with eBay. It almost never shows up with everything, and most of the time it's just the dress. Don't do that to yourself. Order the dress from AG.

Fun fact? Every AG character had a unique letter in the ordering codes before a revamp in about 2007. And they were really easy to break down when, if you were anything like me, read the catalog voraciously. For example, Josefina's Christmas dress had the code "JCO"--Josefina Christmas Outfit--and Addy's Lazy Susan Table and Chairs was "AF" - Addy's Furniture. Since Kirsten already had a monopoly on the letter K, Kit got "Q". Told you Kit was bisexual--she's queer.

This review will also include the Aviator doll and--like Josefina--the LE Mini-Doll.

Historical Clothes Reviews and Historical Accessories: Josefina's Christmas Dress and Mantilla, Niña Doll, and LE Mini Doll

Feliz Navidad from 1820s New Mexico!

Behold, the Winter Holiday Season! That wonderful end of the year where evergreen trees are erected, snow happens in a lot of the US, people finally give their children the things they've been promising them since August¹ and the year gets the hell out of the door with a string of festivals cause it's dark out and there's fuck all to do in the Northern Hemisphere. Some celebrate the birth of Jesus even though we're all pretty sure that happened in the spring, some celebrate black unity and togetherness with candles and first fruits. Some wait until Three King's Day to give out their gifts, some do it on Saint Nicholas's saint day, some people celebrate the low point of the sun and the longest day of the year. Some have a Holly/Oak King thing going, some are celebrating the birth of the Horned God, some of us celebrate the day to celebrate the dwelling of Persephone's time with her husband in underworld (yo) and this year the Jewish kids decided to get that shit overwith early and ran Hanukkah during Thanksgiving. As for the 25th of December? Around here, we call it Giftmas, the Festival of Giving and Receiving. Because contrary to popular belief, some of us like to show our love to and from others with material goods, and if we're not Christian but want to do shit on the Socially Obligated Day of Holiday Mirth, we're stripping the religion out of it. That or we just like the discounts on Cyber Monday. All the fun of holiday shopping, none of the pants!

Wait, I'm supposed to put a review in here somewhere instead of rambling on about holidays. Right.

I have a theme for this month and next month, and that theme is holiday wear for my gang members. Why into January? Cause I have that many holiday dresses for my gang. Everyone has an outfit--and the two girls that don't technically have them yet will be getting them and having that displayed in a Crafting Creatively post. I can probably even Casual Friday a couple other holiday dolls I have. And so that I don't feel obligated to post every day--that's stressful for me--these holiday reviews will be a little spaced out. Let's see if I can finally get back to that "three posts a week" goal I had.

Yes, this is a long opening.

First on the docket is Josefina Montoya and her Christmas Dress and Mantilla² (also known as Josefina's Holiday Outfit). Josefina, as we all should know, is from 1820s New Mexico--not long after Mexico broke off from Spain and became its own country in 1821, but before the chain of events where Texas split off in 1836, joined the US in 1845, and the US and Mexico had a three-year slap fight over Texas called the Spanish-American War which led to the US getting damn near everything out to the Pacific including New Mexico, Arizona, California, and a lot of other chunky state bits.³ So Josefina's family didn't cross the border, the border crossed them.

When Josefina debuted in 1997--one year before Ms. Rowland decided that money was a nice thing and sold Pleasant Company to Mattel, thus leaving a nice point where nostalgic people can point and go "that's when everything about AG got ruined!"--she was released with her first three books and the outfits and accessories for each in time for the holiday season. As the books had a pattern at the time, her first three books were her meet book, school book, and holiday book--and so she had her holiday dress lined up and ready to go for Holiday 1997. Josefina joined the AGGiB (then the AGGiR) in a private purchase in early 2007 that included Kaya and a good portion of her clothes but not her holiday stuff. I got holiday stuff for her and Kit so they could look their best for Giftmas 2007, and then found out she was a PC doll and just gave her the Destuffing Diet.

Josefina's Christmas Dress and Mantilla comes with an empire waist dress, mantilla and attached peineta, full combination white underwear, white socks, and black shoes for a cost of $32. I paid $24 in 2007, checking my packing slips. (Welcome to cost of products rising.) There is no good reason to buy any currently available outfits on the secondhand market unless you can't get AG to ship to you or you desperately want a PC version for some reason--in which case, on eBay the set generally goes for just about as much as it does direct but is often shoeless, sockless, and underwearless. Just buy it from the company if you can.

This review will have a bonus of Niña, Josefina's personal doll, and the LE Mini-Doll that was released for the 25th Anniversary of AG.