Last month, as I was frantically trying to figure out which gadgets and gizmos I should buy for my two little birthday boys, I was suddenly struck with a wave of memories from my own childhood. And it consisted of two wonderfully fabulous toys - Fashion Plates and Barbies. Ah, those were the days. Let's revisit them for a moment...
My
younger sister and I played with Fashion Plates all of the time. In
fact, we named each ‘plate’ girl head and then renamed her when we
switched her outfit. We had about 30 fictitious names committed to
memory. When we got bored rubbing the girls onto paper, we started
writing books. There were plots, personalities, do-gooders, evil
characters, etc. We spent hours and hours coloring them and laughing at
their silliness. I’m pretty sure my mom still has pages upon pages of
our creations stored in a dusty forgotten box somewhere. Boy, would I
love to see those again!
My other childhood obsession was Barbie Dolls. My sister and I each
had about 15-20 Barbies and two small suitcases full of outfits, coats,
dresses, gowns and teeny tiny shoes. To save time, we referred to
single pieces of clothing as “clo” - pretty innovative, huh? I probably
played with Barbie Dolls until I was 13 or 14 years old. That’s how
simple my life used to be. My main concern was whether ‘Kim’ could wear
her ruffled yellow dress with her matching yellow shoes. The vacuum
cleaner was not a friend to Barbie’s shoes.
We had winking Barbies, posing Barbies that came with a camera,
Malibu Barbies, fake Barbies, Ken Dolls, fake Ken Dolls, the Barbie dog
that was really really fluffy… the list goes on and on. We named each
one and gave them a story and their own special personality. ‘Sue’ was
my sister’s most prized Barbie and ‘Kim’ was mine. ‘Julie’ was the most
hated Barbie, ‘April’ was the ditz and ‘Star’ was the unlucky stunt
Barbie that got stuck in trees on more than one occasion.
We had the townhouse and the yellow corvette, jeep and the horse
trailer.
Aside from the toys, what I remember most is the laughter. The
completely spontaneous, genuine, goofy, loud, laughter. My
sister and I had some of the greatest times ever playing in a
room covered with Barbie paraphernalia. Taking a trip down memory lane certainly puts holiday shopping into perspective, doesn't it?
