My Christmas List

  If you've been reading the blog you'll know I am locked in a never ending, but once a year, battle with the leaf sucker truck. This year, as usual, I raked all my leaves, (and the leaves of the entire neighborhood, which blow into the hedges at the side of my house), the miles and miles down the street to the tree line in front of my house, where I then wait for the leaf sucker truck to never come...so my leaves can then kill all the grass in my tree line and make the ground far too lumpy to mow without getting a hernia...which is then punctured by ramming the mower into my stomach when it suddenly gets stuck on lumps of uneven ground...which is caused by the piles of never picked up leaves.(Shew!)And you'll know that we had unexpected and unseasonal snow and below freezing temperatures this past week. That stole my last hope of the leaf sucker truck coming. But lo and behold, on Friday I heard a loud obnoxious noise which went on so long I realized it was not some big overgrown vehicle waiting at the traffic light that is almost in front of my house, but was, indeed, THE LEAF SUCKER TRUCK! They actually came, and sucked up all our snow covered leaves out of the tree line! Amazing! We were left with a bare green tree line amongst the snow covered ground. Then yesterday the weather warmed up and it rained, so all the other snow was gone too.But the amazing thing is, they actually came and took our leaves. That almost never happens. Either the world is about to end, or my life is going to change into some sort of fairy tale.Anyway...
  The holidays are fast approaching. That means it's time to look at my Christmas list again! Amazingly, before I finished this list I actually managed to get one of the dolls on it! I'll tell you which one at the end.
  This year's list is mostly just a fantasy list. These are dolls I would love to have, but due to their prices, I will almost certainly never get. It's nice to dream though. (Who am I kidding?! It's so much better to actually get the stuff than it is to dream about it!)
  Top of the list is definitely this guy, Hamish by Wilde Imagination.


  This is Hamish as Peter Pan,a limited edition of 250.

  As far as I know there have only been four Hamish dolls sold: Peter is one.
Also this Hamish, which was a limited edition of 300...

He has teeth! Aww!!(All the Hamish's do, but I'm just pointing it out.)

 Little Gardener Hamish, a limited edition of 125...

and Trick or Treat Hamish, a limited edition of 75.

  For a change my tastes don't run to the absolute most expensive of the lot! I don't even like the most rare one, Trick or Treat Hamish. (Dead Hamish: That's just creepy.)Unfortunately, my most favourite is not the most available either. I think my very favourite is Peter Pan, since he has brown eyes and dark brown hair. In a pinch I would settle for any of the regular three though! (Just not Trick or Treat.)
   My next doll should probably be referred to as a 'figure', because he's a guy thing. It's the 12" Micheal Caine as Alfred from Batman, by Hot Toys.

How amazing is this thing?! This is a doll!

Micheal Caine is one of my favourite actors, and this doll is an incredible likeness.

Want!!

This doll is over $200 though. BUT, there is a possibility here. You can buy JUST THE HEAD! Then I could put the head on a cheaper body...maybe. Hey, I'm willing to try it.
Next on my list is an absolutely unattainable 'want'. I love the Little Darlings dolls by Dianna Effner.

She's beautiful.
I spotted this guy online.I think he's a Boneka doll.

Not only does he have that cute face sculpt, he's a little boy, and a red head too!But why is he wearing shoes from the disco era?

He's an Effner sculpt, but is he a Little Darling? I'm confused about the whole Little Darlings/Boneka thing.
Since a basic, nude doll is somewhere around $300 to $400 I know I'm never going to get one.I would settle for the vinyl, ball jointed  Ashton Drake Mary Mary Quite Contrary, my first choice, or Little Red Riding Hood.

This is Red. Mary has the same head sculpt, but she's a red head.

Marry Mary Quite Contrary, why are you so expensive?

 Ashton Drake also previously did porcelain dolls of the same characters, but with different Dianne Effner head sculpts and completely different costumes.They are all cute, but I prefer the warm look and smooth feel of vinyl.
The Ashton Drake Alice is also on my list.She's Effner too,and from the same series as Little Red and Mary Contrary, but the sculpt is different.

She's Alice and a Dianna Effner sculpt, two things I love.
If those are all too hard to get,(Which they are.), I would settle for a Maru and Friends Savannah doll.

They're actually too expensive for me too.

She's an Effner sculpt too,and closely resembles the Little Darlings faces. She looks a bit older. Maybe she's an older sister.She's actually about 21" tall.I prefer the smaller size of the Little Darlings, or the ball jointed posability of the fairy tale characters,but beggars can't be choosers, as they say. In fact, I'm not so choosey that I wouldn't take a Maru and friends Jamie if Savannah was unavailable...

They have the same head sculpt, and I actually prefer Jamie's hazel eyes, even though I prefer Savannah's hair.

Another 'too expensive' doll on the list is Raggedy Riley by Helen Kish.

She's from 2006, so she's not too readily available...or affordable.

I love her hair.She's not as posable as a Contempo Riley, but she doesn't have scary pale eyes like some Rileys do, and she has that hair. Maybe someday I can find a cheapo Contempo, (Yeah right.), and change the hair.
Finally we come to the last 'too expensive' doll on the list. (I'm totally ignoring any R. John Wright or Maggie Iacono dolls, because they are so far out of range I can't even see them.)

Oh yeah. There they are. R. John Wright's Mad Hatter and Alice...

...and R. John Wright's Sugar Christmas Mouse.Stop the cuteness! $570! There. Cuteness at least contained.

Maggie Iacono's Alice with the card guys was around $1600! Never mind.

Anyway, the doll that is actually on my list is Patience by the Tonner company.

This is my favourite,Garden Patience,but, again, beggars can't be choosers. I would take...

...Glinda Patience...

...Through the Woods Patience...

...Perfect Patience...

...Tokyo Patience...

...Dorothy Patience...

...Ahoy Patience...

...Prom Patience...

...And of course there's an Alice Patience too!

 I'm not picky really!Any Patience will do.As I said though, my preference would be Garden Patience, with her red hair in bangs, and pink lips. Plus I think Patience looks better with blue eyes. My other choices would lean to Glinda, Ahoy, or Alice.
I got to see Patience in person at the doll show recently, and she's much smaller than I imagined her. She has googly eyes that roll back and forth when she's moved. She's also very poseable.

Now if we're talking about dolls that are actually even close to affordable, there's Journey Girls Kelsey.

I prefer this one, with the sweater.but since she's not in the stores anymore and a second hand one costs about as much or more than a new one, I'll take whatever I can get. I am kicking myself because I actually left behind a Journey Girls Dana at Salvation Army recently. I thought she was over priced at $6.99, since I thought she had had a haircut. Nooo. Dana's hair just looks like that.
  I also would like to have the first Ever After High Madeline Hatter.

I collect Alice dolls, and this would fit in that line. I really want this particular one though,with these shoes and the polka dot tights, but since she's from the first wave of Ever After high dolls she's going to be harder to find. (Tip to Ken: they have two of them at Rural King...)
  I would love to have one of the small Mooshka dolls.

 And there was a really cool articulated red haired doll in the Pirate Fairy Tinkerbell line. I only saw her once, so I can't be sure, but I think it was the Rosetta one I loved.
  Of course, there are other things on my list: The ever popular black socks, a new night gown, a programme from the recent Kate Bush concerts,etc. But you don't want to hear about that stuff.
  And which doll did I manage to get before the list was finished? It was Patience! I was able to get a 'cheap', naked Patience online.(Being as it's Patience, she was still not that cheap.) She is the Patience that would definitely have been my last choice as she came. But, what have I been saying?And anyway,I've warmed to her a lot. We'll see which Patience I got tomorrow.

My Christmas list is ready, if anyone's interested...

  Ok, It's December now. I feel it's finally ok to put that mental Christmas list that's been living in my head for months into print!
  Apart from that DVD recorder (which is VERY doubtful), and the black socks (which are possible.), I also have ** SURPRISE!** quite a few dolls on my list! Here are my top doll wants for this Christmas:

  This Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse Midge. If her bangs aren't looking screwy, she's so pretty. But even more than Midge, I want...

Life in the Dreamhouse Raquelle. She is so cool! I love that smirk! And Smirky Raquelle is articulated too.And that's the one I want. It has to be the smirky one. Not the one with the regular face.
  I also love the Bratzillaz Meygana dolls. I have had the first one for a while, but they just keep coming out with more. I like them all, but this one has glasses!

I seem to have a thing for dolls in glasses. I know for a fact that this one is already in Santa Ken's bag, because I put her in the cart myself when I found her clearanced at Meijers last week! Actually, I went looking for her since this particular Meijer was the only one I knew of that still carried her. Then I panicked because the entire line was GONE. I was desperately looking at the clearance shelves to no avail, when a Meijer worker walked up and placed her on the shelf right in front of me.She was the only doll of the entire line left in the store and the guy sat her on the shelf right in front of my face. That was my excuse to Ken that she was obviously MEANT to come home with me. He insists I wait until Christmas though, so she disappeared the minute we got home. I just hope he doesn't do something he frequently does, and lose her in his computer room and/or forget to give her to me.
  I also want the China Girl from Oz the Great and Powerful.

I like the tiny one, and the large, limited edition one is amazingly accurate but too expensive. But I have actually found the 14" regular line one in stores.
  And Tonner still has Maudlynne Macabre on sale for $34.99, although not with the extra 20% they had after Thanksgiving. Just saying...

  And in the category of 'dolls I will never own because they cost too much', there's always Amelia Thimble's friend Hamish.

Amelia is nice too, and I wouldn't turn her down if I were gifted with her, but Hamish is so cute. I love little boy dolls.

And the amazing R.John Wright Red Queen.

Again,I wouldn't turn down any R. John Wright dolls, but that Red Queen is wonderful! I've seen her a couple of times at the BIG doll show, and she is so, so...AMAZING. That's the only word for her. And of course, I collect Alice stuff.
  Back to more affordable things. Ken, if you're reading this, (and I know you're not.), I still want a vinyl Diana Effner Willow.  They turn up on Ebay at affordable prices occasionally, and I'd be willing to sell my porcelain Willow if I got one...Ken! Are you reading?!
  And I really like the Journey Girls Kelsey doll, available at Toys R Us Ken.

This one, with the sweater.
  I like a lot of variety in my doll collection.
  I have only just discovered that Barbie has twin siblings again, and one of them is a boy! Check this out!

Not only is he a boy, he wears GLASSES! What was I just saying?! Apparently even the dog wears glasses! I'll have to see them in person first to be sure I want them, but they look cute. And toy companies make so few boy dolls. The World kids have very few male friends and most of them bear a great resemblance to Harry Potter characters! Check this out Emma! Emma collected Stacie dolls when she was little because Emma the doll was a Stacie. I even had to get her one of these new Stacies when they started them a couple of years ago. She would definately have had this set!(Her 'Dolltown' was so desperate for male characters that she resorted to a Toy Story Woody Burger King doll, a Pee Wee Herman action figure, (He was the town trouble maker and led Woody, Snow White's son, astray many times,), and a figural Arthur (As in the aardvark from the children's books.) flashlight.She did eventually get a Todd and all those Harry Potter dolls, but for most of her childhood Woody, Pee Wee, and Arthur were it.
  And ok, I need new Beatles socks too.

 They're more sensible gifts, right? I mean, they are socks.