Pajama Jammy Jams: Sleepover Set (Costco Holiday 2016 Exclusive)

Now with skinned polar bears and --oh hey someone's new.

Blog more than once a goddamn month, Neth, the people and my brains say. Say it to my Seasonal Affective Disorder and chronic depression Brain Weasels, I snap back, before sitting down and opening up le Blogger.

It's been a challenging month, especially on my birthday weekend. Dear Oya of the Winds, my birthday weekend. I had birthday plans. My age is a square now,¹ and I was going to AG Seattle and enjoying dinner with two of my fellow AG collectors. And then the PNW Windstorm had the mall close hours early. I was able to duck up there just to get my birthday presents and then came home, cranky and the opposite of pleased with the events of the day. Still, better safe that crushed by a tree.² I really should have listened to my Astrological Forecast for October, it said right there that the 14th (my father's birthday) and 15th (mine) would be challenging. Le cry, le sigh, le unhappy bi.

But I do have new stuff to review, and I was able to take pictures soon after getting my goodies. At the start of the month, the Bae and I went to Costco to stock up on apple juice and toilet paper, like yah do, and I came across AG Costco Holiday Goodies. Ever since I first moved up here and could get the old school story collections at Costco, I've been getting AG stuff from there, and once they started doing things like exclusive book bundles and pet sets, I've been rather on it. It's how I got my BeForever Addy book set, my Pomeranian before they came out widespread, and both Lea's and Grace's book sets with extra stuff.³ 

This, however, is a major first: a Costco Exclusive outfit bundle. Leaks were seen before the Holiday Moddie release of a blue PJ top and shorts with blue slippers, but they didn't come with that. A few weeks later, out came the Costco Sleepover Set and that's where the aforementioned PJs were, along with a lot of accessories to make the pack worth the $39.99 it cost. Along with the blue pajamas and slippers, the set comes with a white fur pillow and sleeping bag, two drink glasses, a bowl of popcorn, a book and AG magazine, and a miniature version of Junior Apples to Apples. So basically it's a new outfit and sleeping bag with a tweaked version of the Sleepover Accessories from 2011.

All Boxed up.

 The set comes in a box bundle, with all the bits visible and encased in various plastic. I did not keep the box. I have enough boxes around here without keeping AG boxes for no damn reason. How long will this be in Costco? I have no idea. Costco flips stock on the regular, and it'll probably cost more on eBay once it's not there anymore.

Deboxed.

After I got it, I got out one of my gang members and got her all dressed up in it for both Wiki-shots and this review, as seen above. But Neth, that's not a new girl, that's just Addy without her earrings. Nope! First of all, Addy here can barely be talked into a yukata; she'd try to throttle me if I put her in something this modern. Secondly, Addy's earrings don't come out.

Jamiya "Miya/Mimi" Bissett, y'all.

 So who is she? This is Jamiya Bissett, who goes by Miya (or sometimes Mimi). She's an #1--aka the doll that I tell everyone to get when they ask which doll to get and I honestly can't be assed to care. One of the first Moddies to come out in 1995--textured dark hair, darker brown eyes, no bangs, and dark skin--she was around until 2009, when she was retired. I found her for a good cost on eBay with some rough hair, and after some braid spray and scrub down, she is a cutie pie. Miya is from inner city Houston, hood as they come and don't give a fuck, speaks fluent AAVE, and likes her baby hair with baby hair and afros. Between her and Mellie, I have a mini-me.

And she's making her debut in pajamas. Cause that's how we roll.

Pajama Jammy Jams and Historical Clothes Reviews/Historical Accessories Reviews: Maryellen's Pajamas and Hairstyling Set

Jamming for bed, the 1950s way.

Don't you love it when things conspire to make sure you get fuck all done? I sure don't. So there I was on this past Friday, planning to take some shots of Addy in her Sunday Best Set and Maryellen in her meet set, after getting the mail. Addy so I could compare her to the tiny LE mini, and Ellie to show her in something before her PJs. This was planned after getting my package from the office.

...And then I had a random encounter with a curb. I rolled for dexterity to save my balance, hit a two out of twenty, tripped hard, fell even harder, and both scraped my palm and felt shooting pain in my leg. I caught my breath, got my package and went back home, and inspected the damage. And wow that was a lot of blood and a wide ass cut. A temp patch up and a painkiller later, I waited for the Bae to get home from work and hoped it maybe wasn't as bad as I thought it was. I was wrong. He took one look at the cut and put me in the car and made me go to the urgent care center. This is where the doctors looked at my cut and made faces at it before injecting me and poking and flushing things out with others and three hours of my Friday evening was spent in the urgent care center, including a book reading. All that is to say that there are probably six to twelve stitches in my left knee,¹ it hurts like a son of a motherfucker to walk anywhere or flex my leg too much, and I'm not going to be doing any kneeling for pictures for at least two weeks. Fuck you too, gravity, you whore.

But I did have some older pictures I took beforehand, even if I wasn't planning this review to be Ellie's debut. So Ellie will just have to accept that her debut on the blog is going to be her in her pajamas. She's cool with this, considering she came with me to the Urgent Care center. If anyone understands healthcare needs, it's Ellie.

Ellie--Maryellen Larkin, but around here she much prefers to go by her nickname--wasn't initially going to be a Historical Character I cared for. The 1950s are the most overhyped nostalgia era ever for obnoxious white Baby Boomers, who want to remember the time of their childhood as a wholesome, perfect era of American Greatness when people didn't think about segregation, sexism, racism, or oppression and they didn't have to think about others at all. The Fifties get overly wrought down to the surface aesthetics: poodle skirts, records, jukeboxes, bobby soxers, roller skating diners, television spread, drive in movies, ponytails, white rock and roll, families with father knowing best and mother in pearls and heels, etc. Basically all the fluffy feel-good times with none of the understanding or discussion about the sociopolitial issues that plagued the time. But like Caroline and Kit before her,² Ellie's stories endeared her to me--she likes comics, science, does art, and supports vaccinations (having been disabled by polio). I basically went through a set of Five Stages with her:

1.) Denial: "Damn the 50s! And damn her! She's hazel eyed, she's white, she's got the classic mold, her name is meh--there is nothing special about her. I'm not getting her."
2.) Bargaining. "That outfit's nice. And that one. I'll just get a few of her things for Edith. Edith can wear her clothes. Dorothy too. I don't need Maryellen."
3.) Anger: "I've read the books and why is she such a charming character?"
4.) Sadness. "eeeen I wasn't supposed to like you eeenn i am cry eeeeen"
5.) Acceptance. "Come on, Ellie-jelly. You're the newest member of the Gang. Meet Edith and Dorothy and be friends."

So I ended up getting her as my 35th birthday gift to myself along with some of her clothes, making her the fastest from "I hate you" to "let us snuggle and be friends" since Kit. This included her Pajamas at the standard cost of $24: a top, bottoms, and flat style slippers. A later trip I picked up her Hairstyling Set for $20: a set of twelve rollers, instruction card, storage bag, and sleeping bonnet. The eBay costs are not even being considered on this post. Go to AG, Go Directly to AG, do not pass eBay, do not spend $50. Seriously, it's been five months. Girls' variations on the pajamas exist for those that can fit into them; I am not one of those people.

Hairstyling set first because Ellie had her bonnet on and I took her curls down as I was taking the pictures.

Pajama Jammy Jams: Polar Bear Pajamas (2013)

Michi wishes the weather was warmer. She certainly is.

It's March, and in theory the days should be getting warmer and the plants should be wiggling up. But someone on the East coast clearly pissed Demeter off,¹ cause she's been dumping snow, sleet, and ice on them like it ain't no thang. Climate change, motherfuckers. Here in the PNW we're not snowed on--in fact, we didn't get any snow all winter near the Puget sound. Or at least not near my place. Fuck you climate change, I didn't move to Seattle to have Texas Winters. Now how am I going to take cute pictures of Addy with her sled? Sigh, I'll just have to snap shots of Felicity in the cherry tree that's popped its flowers. But it still got cold, the nights are still in the low to mid 40s at best, and I'm better off keeping the heater on and remembering to put on house slippers here and there when my toesies need cosies. So if you're all snowed in--or even if you're not--grab some warm drinks, tuck your AG into her toastiest pajamas, and read more reviews by yours truly.

I have a bit of a love of AG pajamas. Nearly all my AG Historicals have their canon PJs,² several of my created historicals have pajamas I either made or swiped from others--Edith notably has Emily's, which is very 60s--I have a couple PJs from other historicals, and I have enough modern ones that in theory I can get all my moddies and near moddies in pajamas and have a pajama jammy jam. Today we're reviewing the Polar Bear Pajamas, a notably more recent addition to my pajama stash: a blue tunic top, polar bear print leggings, knit boot slippers, and two white ponytail holders. And a Square "Real""charm but since the charms are being phased out, whatever. (Let's see what clutter they put with Truly Me.³) These came out in 2013 and very recently retired--as in I just noted as such on the wiki, and they were in the last Cyber Monday Sale. I purchased a set soon after release at the AG store for the original cost of  $24. They went down to almost half off during Cyber Monday to $12.50 before they sold out. Since they just retired, the 'Bay people will try to get you to pay $35-40 or more for them. Hah. Bide your time, get them cheap. Michi has half claimed these as her own, though other moddies have worn them. There's also a bonus when we get to the shoes.

To the review. 

Pajama Jammy Jams: Slumber Shirt with Mini Bear (1995), Slumber Shirt (1996) and AG Bear Slumber Shirt

Four versions of the same outfit. The 90s was a highly creative time.

Where have you been for two weeks, my loyal readers said. The answer on the morning of the 13th was going to be "working on my Nanowrimo novel like I do every year, because I am a self publishing author."¹ I was going to say how I won early but not as early as I did the year before, and since I hit the 50k barrier on the 12th from writing about 4k a day, I could ease back to only maybe 3.5k since writing is my dayjob, and get back to yelling about AG's bullshit.

But then my father died on the 13th as I was starting to work on this post and instead of getting this posted and snapping pictures of my magazines for Magazine Monthly, it's been a string of bourbon shots (shit you not, that was my modus operandi for five hours yesterday), writing out my grief in my novel, and last minute flight booking to Wisconsin. If you were just here for clothes reviews, advice and bitching, you might not be happy with me. So what? It's my damn space. Welcome to American Girl Outsider, the blog where I will talk about how Mike and the Mechanics just made me do an ugly hideous "I miss my Daddy" cry for five minutes before talking about doll clothes. Writing is how I cope with deep shit, be it about doll shit or in a novel.

Here, it's doll shit.

In 1995, as I said in previous posts, American Girl launched their modern line which has been highly successful for the company to the point that everyone with Nostalgia Goggles set to "Pre-Mattel" seems to think that it's dragging the entire line down the tubes. And since the line was designed at the start to parallel the historicals, they frequently sorted things into the same slots they had: a "school" setup, a "holiday" setup, and so on. This included a "sleep" setup. The first nightgown that your adorable little 18" American Girl of History could have was the Slumber Shirt and Mini Bear, a red nightshirt with a hair tie and a miniature version of the bear and outfit you could have for your Miss AG Bear for the low low cost of $16. The red version only lasted about a year in doll sizes--1995 to 1996--before it came out as the Slumber Shirt, now two dollars higher at $18, sans mini bear, plus a mini copy of the book Games and Giggles, and much more similar to the one Miss AG Bear had (which priced at $10 alone, $28 if you got the bear dressed). This set lasted as an option until 1998 when many more creative nightclothes started to emerge. That's right, there are four versions of the same outfit, two just for dolls. 90s AG was slick as shit for making dollar bills come to them.

The outfits show up here and there on eBay for a high of about 30 bucks. The red set almost always is found without the bear, or Bear Sold Separately. The hunt for a set for Miss AG bear might be harder, and might be listed as a set for a doll. Mini bears are sporadic, but often dressed. The green set I can't pin down when I got it; it was probably in a surge of AG purchases. I remember Mellie wore it to bed soon after her arrival.  I had the red shirt just kicking around from a swap box, and got the actual hair tie for it for 4 bucks off eBay. The bear's outfit was about $20 or so, and the Mini bear cost me 15 bucks with shipping, so it probably all balances out.

Naomi is sporting the 95-96 set, Marisol the 96-98.

Our gang member models today are Naomi Kirkland and Marisol Luna, who decided that this was a good time for an AG pajama jammy jam--and if you have no idea what that is from, you might be too white and too young for me to have a sleeping in the bed sexual relationship with. Google it.

We'll get more of the gang in other posts. The holidays are coming up, and nearly everyone here has an adorable outfit for the occasion.