Christmas Princess Bride Barbie

I made Christmas Princess Bride Barbie in honour of my friend Judée who has just announced her engagement to Michael.

Once a couple decide to marry, a million questions arise in regards to the actual wedding.

Where?  A tropical island getaway, something quick at City Hall, a short ceremony in your living room, a hotel ballroom, under a tree at a public garden, a cathedral service by candlelight or an Elvis chapel in Vegas?

Who should be on the guest list?  The list can range   from just two witnesses pulled off the street, to only parents and siblings, to anyone who can afford to join you in Paradise, to all your Facebook friends.

What will the bride wear?  A navy blue skirt suit, a Steampunk ensemble in black lace with tall leather boots, a sarong over a white bikini, a soft  silk shift with floating chiffon  panels, or a $10,000 gown covered in crystals and beads with a long train and a veil?

For Barbie, the answer is easy. All of the above.

Barbie's Christmas List

There are many, many necessary tasks to complete before Christmas arrives.   It very helpful to make check lists so that nothing is forgotten.

Grocery lists, housework lists,  Christmas shopping lists, Christmas card lists, menus (a menu is a list) , and most important of all, the wish list.  What do you want for Christmas?

A wish list can be started at any time of the year and is open to constant modification as your whims dictate.  Have no doubt.  This list is for whimsical items only.  It may be that on Christmas morning your gifts include practical necessities like winter boots or bathroom towels.  Your family knows you need those things.  Does your family know you would love a purple scarf with sequins on the hem?  Does your family know you would love a package of sparkly paper, a rainbow stamp pad and a unicorn stamp?

When I was twelve I gave my parents a list of fabrics with yardages.  Two meters of pink velveteen,  1 1/2 meters of blue flannelette,  black corduroy, navy bottom-weight cotton, heavy calico and so on.  My father was skeptical that fabric was a Christmas gift but that's what was in all the gifts I opened that year.  I was so excited and spent the whole school break hunched over the sewing machine.

This year, I asked for fabric again.  Barbie is wearing a new dress made from one piece and behind her are two more examples of my treasure trove.   Don't you love gifts you don't need but really, really want?

Santa's helper, Ken's friend, Allan

Santa Claus is the most magical being in the world.  In one night he travels around the world in a  sleigh pulled by 8 tiny reindeer  delivering gifts to all the good boys and girls.  Or does he?

In some countries he appears on December 8th. In other countries, he comes on January 6th.  Maybe your family receives gifts on December 24th.   Perhaps your home is visited by La Befana or Dred Moroz or Father Christmas.   Saint Nicholas is  another welcome guest who brings presents at this time of year.

It matters not, the job gets done on time because Santa has many helpers.  These helpers preside at parties, listen carefully to wish lists while sitting on festive thrones posing for photos with children and pets.  Santa's helpers collect money for charity and ride in parade floats.  They distribute Christmas baskets of food for Christmas feasts.  They help Santa answer the millions of letters sent to the North Pole.

This year, Ken's friend, Allan, wants to be a Santa's helper too.  Ho, Ho, Ho.

Festival of Lights Barbie

Winter Solstice is the longest night of the year and in 2017 falls on December 21.  Winter is a very difficult time in northern climes.  It is depressingly dark, freezing cold and food can be very scarce.

While nothing we can do hastens the passage of the Earth around the sun,  people use sympathetic magic in an attempt to speed the return of long light-filled days.

Decorating our homes with sparkling lights (ostensibly to celebrate Christmas) is really a form of sympathetic magic.  We are trying in vain to lure the sun back.

The ancient tradition of burning a Yule log in the fireplace is based on the same idea.  Thinking that like engenders like, people would build a ceremonial fire in an attempt to bring back warmer weather.  Sometimes, now, we might just eat the rolled cake that represents that solstice fire.  Not everyone has a fireplace and that chocolate icing is delicious.

Barbie thought she'd hang lights on herself.  It may or may not affect how long winter will be.  It will certainly affect how great she looks. 

O Little Star of Bethlehem Barbie

O Little Star of Bethlehem Barbie

In elementary school, we had a Christmas concert every year.  One notable time my class sang The Coventry Carol.  All of the students sat on stage for the whole show and each class would rise as it took its turn to sing.  This was much easier than marshaling the children in and out for each song.

The school stage had two short flights of stairs leading down to the gym floor with a skirting wall that extended to hide the stairs from the audience.  Someone rigged a platform by putting some boards across the top of the wall for my class.  There was room for 24 kids in two rows, twelve stage left and twelve stage right.  I was kid 25 so my chair was on the gym floor and I stood on it when it was our turn to sing.  I was tall but the arrangement had my head at waist level to the others.

No one else from my family was performing that year.  We had a new baby at home so my mother could not attend.  Dad tried to escape too.  He suggested that I need not go.  This was craziness.  I had practiced.  My class needed me.  Dad suggested he could drop me off at the school and pick me up when it was over.  No, no.  Everyone's parents would be there.  What if he only came for my one song?  It wasn't just one song.  We would all be singing O Canada at the start and God Save the Queen at the end!

My adorable, long-suffering Dad came....  and stayed for the whole concert. 

All I Want for Christmas Barbie

All I Want for Christmas Barbie

It is hard to keep  Christmas secrets when you live in a family.  After every shopping expedition you have to sneak into the house and up to your  room to wrap and hide the gifts before someone sees you.  

My father, the world's worst gift shopper, took my four-year-old sister and me to choose a gift for our mother.  Mom had mentioned that she would like a pair of kid leather gloves to match her new purse.  It was a successful trip and dad explained that we must not tell what we had bought.  It was a secret until Christmas.  He repeated many times on the way home that the kid gloves were a secret.  We promised.

But Christmas is unbearably exciting when you are four years old and we weren't out of our coats before my sister blurted the news to Mom.  "We bought you kid's mitts!"

Barbie's lips are sealed.  She will never tell you what I got for you this year.

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear Barbie

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear Barbie

A debate that occurred regularly in our house could have been called "French Christmas or English Christmas?"  My mother came from Acadian stock and my father's parents were British.

My mother felt Christmas began with everyone who was old enough attending  midnight mass. After mass, you woke up the little ones and the réveillon began.  Rabbit pie was the featured treat.  People went to bed at dawn and turkey dinner was served in the evening of the 25th.

My father wanted everyone to hang stockings and go to bed on Christmas Eve.  Then we could wake up early to open gifts.  (As a child, I interpreted early as 3 AM, not popular but in retrospect a nice meld of the two traditions).  There was children's mass at 9 and we could play with our new toys all day until the turkey dinner was served.

When we were little the English tradition prevailed but, over time, the scheduling got more French.  My brother was an altar boy and my mother was so proud she made him a cassock and surplice of his own.  There was some in the sacristy but they were of dubious hygiene, often needed repair and the right size was not always available.

When he was 9 or possibly 10 years old, he was asked to serve at Midnight Mass.  In those days, mass was in Latin and after the gospel there was a long prayer called the Confiteor.  The altar boys would crouch, heads down, on the floor and recite it with the priest.  The congregation knelt and bowed their heads.  At the end of the prayer, we lifted our heads and three of the four altar boys did too.

But not my brother, he'd fallen asleep. 

On the 1st Day of Christmas Barbie

On the 1st Day of Christmas Barbie

I wanted to see how a skirt with godets would look on Barbie.  It undulates and I keep thinking I should put a wire in it to better define the shape but then it might make Barbie dizzy.

Be that as it may, Barbie likes to sit in front of the tree with a crackling fire in the fireplace and watch the snow fall softly onto the quiet, moonlit street.  She also likes to open presents.  My mother loved opening presents.  She loved to fondle them, shake them, heft them and try to guess what was inside.
I flew home from university one Christmas with a suitcase full of gifts.  Mom was at the door to greet me when I arrived.  "Let me unpack your bag.  I'm sure you have laundry to do.  I'll start washing it now."

Nice try.  My mother hadn't done my laundry for me in years.  She just wanted to see her gift.  I caught her peering under my bed the next day.   "Vacuuming", she said.  "Snooping", I answered.

I was way ahead of her anyway.  All that week, in secret, she fondled a gift I'd wrapped for my brother.   A gift I'd wrapped for my brother, but with her name on it.

Wish Book Barbie

Merry Christmas Princess Angel Barbie 2014

The arrival of the Sears Wishbook was much heralded by the kids in our family.  We had a game where we sat with the catalogue on the coffee table and turned the pages.  The goal was to slap your hand on the photo of a toy first while saying, "I want this one!" hence claiming it as your own.  My mother would play it with us and she was fast.

Winter toys like skates and sleds I remember as being popular as were board games and books.  (I wanted to own the complete Nancy Drew series and the Tom Corbett series, the Hardy Boys, Cherry Ames and everything by L.M. Montgomery.)

Anyway, a very exciting page displayed the annual Collector Barbie.  Always dressed in a fabulous gown, with jewels and beautiful long hair, I dubbed her the Merry Christmas Princess Angel Barbie.  (I checked, this year's costs $49.00 and is wearing a pretty red and gold dress.)  This is my version for 2014.

About Your Size Barbie

About Your Size Barbie

I went to the mall today to begin my Christmas shopping.

During my misspent youth, I worked at the normal number of low-paying jobs, babysitting, cleaning, day-camp counselor, bartender, food server at military mess, sales staff at a cigarette bar, and retail clerk in a small department store.  I enjoyed all the jobs well enough, most of the time, although  I did decide never to smoke or drink or have children.

Most significantly, I swore a solemn oath never, ever to work retail at Christmas again.  

In November, the racks in the lingerie section of the store where I worked was packed tightly with pyjamas, nightgowns and robes.   Most of the customers were women choosing gifts ... until Christmas Eve.  In the morning, men were waiting outside before the doors opened and all day the department was thronged.  No one seemed to know what size his wife wore.  "She's about your size, maybe a little shorter, taller, fatter, thinner." 

On Boxing Day, all the wives came in to return their Christmas presents.

Mummer Barbie and her ugly stick

Mummer Barbie

Any Mummers allowed in?  There is a Christmas tradition in Newfoundland of visiting neighbours' homes in disguise.  The neighbours may poke and prod the mummers and question them closely.  Once their identity is guessed, the mummers remove their masks (or pillowcases), food and drink are offered and then perhaps there is music before the mummers move on to the next house.

The mummers may carry small instruments with them.  If you can't play the fiddle or harmonica then maybe you can play the spoons or other percussive instrument.

Barbie has an ugly stick.  It is a dowel (real people use broomsticks) stuck in an old boot.  The dowel is topped with a stuffed pillow head wearing a headscarf.  I nailed sequins to the dowel but a broomstick would have flattened metal bottle tops.  The ugly stick can be banged on the floor or hit with a small stick producing a satisfying amount of noise to accompany the singing.

I love singing at kitchen parties.  Everybody sings, nobody listens.  Let's have one more verse of Michael Row the Boat Ashore and then we'll go home.