Christmas is here again...well, it's not. But the dolls are!

  As usual the stores are way ahead of the holidays. It's not even Halloween yet, and the Christmas dolls are already showing up in stores. I recently saw all the new Holiday Barbies, (and Ken too these days!), at Meijer. 

  There's the required blonde Barbie.

  There's the African American/Black Barbie.

   And there's the Hispanic Barbie.

And lastly, there is Ken.

  I have never been much for blonde hair, or the blank expression of  most playline Barbies. This Holiday Barbie is no exception. I much prefer the more interesting face of the Black Barbie. I don't think this year's Hispanic Barbie is that attractive, so Black Barbie is my favourite this year. That frequently happens, although  there have been some pretty Hispanic Holiday Barbies over the years too. As for Ken, I don't like his hair, and he's one of those No Socks guys, (with a tuxedo?!),which I also can't get behind, so I can live without him. 

  Actually, I have never been into these big dress Barbies most of the time either. I have liked a lot of the collector Barbies with 'big dresses', but those were a bit more detailed than the playline dolls. It just seemed they put more time into the designs of the collector ones, which makes sense. But, as I say, I have never been that into the Big Dress Barbies, I am much more likely to be interested in the sweater Christmas Barbies, like this year's doll.

  

  This doll looks cozy and comfortable, which appeals to me. I think those are supposed to be pajama bottoms. Wearing your PJs all day on Christmas is allowed. Emma has planned for us all to wear matching Muppet Christmas Carol pajamas this year. That should be interesting. I'm five feet tall, and just about as wide, so we'll see if I can walk with extra long legs on the bottoms, or even pull the bottoms up.

  For those who missed the Christmas Mariah Carey doll, she's available at Ollie's again this year.

  There has been a bit going on around here. Ken spent a few days in the hospital recently, because of another UTI. He will never learn to listen to me when I tell him he's not drinking enough water. I have been busy wrapping Christmas presents, and have almost all my shopping wrapped already, including the stocking stuff. That sounds good, but a few years ago I had all my presents wrapped before December, and I just didn't feel Christmassy in December! On the other hand, I have been passing the wrapped presents off to Emma as I had them done, and now I don't have to haul  loads of presents out to the car in the cold and ice of winter, and tote them to Emma's house, where I reverse the process and tote them into her house in the snow and cold. So there is a positive too.

  There will be another post soon on some more doll releases of the Christmas season, plus some Halloween musings too. See you soon.

mmmmmmmm

The Holidays are Here Again, and With Them Come Dolls

   I have a doll show post nearly ready for you. Until then, I thought I'd talk about some interesting dolls I have seen lately. The holidays are coming up, and the toys are screaming for attention in the stores. The toy catalogs from the stores arrived ages ago.

Of course, it's not so close to Christmas that Kroger should  have been selling cut Christmas trees for WEEKS now, but they have been! 

  In any case, here are some dolls that have found my attention.

  The My Life As line has Willy Wonka themed dolls, and they come with a tiny plush Oompa Loompa.

  And there are the 18" Harry Potter themed toys from My Life As.

  

The success of "Wicked" has brought The Wizard of Oz to the forefront again. Walmart has these costumes, costume pieces, and these small dolls. The dolls are about the size of the Disney Store small versions of the Animator's dolls.

And then there are the Oz dolls from My Life As.

Wow. Toto looks more like a Chow than a terrier!

    

Walmart.

A couple of years ago I posted about the Best Friends Forever dolls sold at Dollar Tree. They're still being sold there, and now they have a couple of new characters. Our Dollar Tree also finally got the wig sets and clothing sets. 

  The Christmas dolls are coming out. I think this is the first time there has been a Holiday Ken. The Barbie movie has given Ken new life.

  The Holiday Barbies are out. You have a choice of three this year. There's also an 80th anniversary Barbie. It's Mattel's 80th anniversary, not Barbie's.

  And speaking of "Wicked", the new "Wicked" movie is out, or about to be, and the new dolls are out too. There are new versions of Elphaba and Glinda...

Meijer has small Wicked dolls in balloons, and a singing Glinda doll.

Walmart.

...as well as new characters like Dorothy.  In spite of the fact that the blue and white gingham dress is MGM's version of Dorothy, and has nothing to do with the original book description or illustrations, and that "Wicked" is a Universal release, and that Warner Brothers owns the rights to the MGM "Wizard of Oz", (I always have to think of the original studio rivalries and imagine how Louis B. Mayor must be absolutely turning, nay, spinning, in his grave to think that Warner Brothers now owns the rights to all his movies now!), the "Wicked" Dorothy comes pretty close to the MGM version.

  But my favourite new doll is the Wizard, played by Jeff Goldblum. The doll is a Walmart exclusive, and he is great. He really looks like Jeff Goldblum.

  The Kawaii Hi line is newish.

  They aren't new, but the line seems to be expanding, and I think they're cute, so I'm including the Hey Bestie dolls here.

  They're about 6 inches tall, with cute, actually+

 removeable cloth clothes and loads of accessory sets. They're cute, and have jointed knees and elbows.

They have a bunk bed set.

They have cars.

There's a cafe.

There's a hair salon.

So they only have a bedroom to live in, but they can get their hair done and eat out, and drive to the places to do it. Really, can a house be far behind?

  And there are loads of characters.

  My favourites are the red head...

...and the short haired girl on the right in this picture.

  They all have the same face though.

  Oh! I like the girl in orange too.

  And of course, there's always Barbie.

This is Meijer.

  Wednesday and Monster High are still popular.

Meijer

Walmart

  Meijer has an 18" doll line called Wonderfully You, which has the old Madame Alexander My Life As head sculpt.

  So there you are. That's only a start on the dolls that are available. There will hopefully be a lot of fun stuff out there for the holidays. And even better, it might get clearanced afterward!

  See you soon with the last doll show post of the year.

Christmas Dolls and Stuff, and a Request for Your Prayers and Positive Thoughts

   I know you haven't heard from me for a while. I'm still here. Kens doing better, and I have been spotting some interesting things while out shopping. Here are some I thought I'd share with you.

  First of all there's this year's Holiday Barbies. There were three at our local Meijer.

  These included the Barbie that used to be called the Hispanic Barbie. Not sure what they're calling it these days.

 She's made from the Teresa head sculpt. I have always been partial to this sculpt, and I have a lot of different dolls made from it. This Holiday doll kind of reminds me of Mary Ann, from "Gilligan's Island", when she hit her head and thought she was Ginger. ("Mar-ey Onn Ann isn't Mar-ey Onn anymore, because she thinks she's Gunger. And Gunger isn't Gunger any more, because she thinks she's Mar-ey Onn." )

  There was the usual blonde Barbie.

  Then there was the African American Barbie.

  She has sort of a surprised look about her. Maybe she's shocked that she was the only one of the three to get two bent arms instead of just one. What's the deal with that?

  As you can see, they were $45. That seems a lot, but I'm not sure that isn't cheaper than some years.

  There was also an additional Mattel holiday doll, Mariah Carey.

  I supposed she has sort of become synonymous with Christmas., Sort of the female Bing Crosby.

  This endcap shared space with the Wicked dolls, before they got recalled. They were gone pretty quick, although I think some of them dribbled out of Kohl's for quite a while afterward.

  I am still amused and kind of surprised by the huge display of Snoop Dogg merchandise at Walmart! It isn't really their thing. And there's so much of it! There must be 6 or 8 feet of shelf space for the stuff. 

The Snoops on the Stoop were sold out.

There are a couple of different sized Snoop on the Stoop dolls, and, to keep him company, there's Martha on the Mantel. 

Kohl's has Hallmark ornaments I never seem to see at Hallmark. (Mind you, I don't knwo where there IS a Hallmark anymore!) The X-Box is a little big for 8 inch kid dolls in 1/6 scale, but will be perfect for 12" guys like Ken, etc.

The Golden Girls TV is perfect for 1/6 scale.

It lights up, has a screen with changing lenticular pictures, and plays sound clips from the show.

  As for Ken, he got out of the hospital after about 4 or 5 days, and was back to walking 50 feet with the therapist two days later. He was very sick though. He had a very bad UTI, and they were afraid he was bleeding internally, because his red blood count was so low. It was down to 7, and they said that if it went any lower, they would have to give him a transfusion! They finally found out that he had no internal bleeding, but that the low red blood count was because he had such bad infections. They found he also had infected pockets in his colon too, (diverticulitis.). But they changed his antibiotics, and things got better. He's now doing well, and pretty much back to where he was before he got sick.

  But it isn't Ken I'm asking for all your positive thoughts, prayers, and well wishes for. (Well, him too.) My sister has been diagnosed with breast cancer. I have previously asked for others, that you send all your positive thoughts, prayers, or whatever you believe in. Now I am asking for my sister. We don't know much about her cancer yet. If you believe in the power of collective positive energy, or the power of prayer, or whatever, please use some of it on her.