Hello and welcome to Day 12 in my Countdown to Christmas blog! Well, here we go again with another story of Aunt Sis. She loved dolls and had quite a handsome collection of them. From the time I was a little girl, visits to Aunt Sis’s were very special. She lived in a Victorian house high on a terrace surrounded by rose bushes, a vegetable garden and herbs planted in the shape of a Celtic cross. A wreath of dried flowers, babies breath and eucalyptus graced the front door. Chimes invited guests into a simple home rich in hospitality. Upon entering the home, the scent of dry rose petals and herbs filled the air. Tiny sachet baskets sat in nooks all about the house, keepsakes she made for her nieces. But my favorite room in the house was the bedroom at the top of the second landing. It was her daughter’s room when she lived there, and I’ll never forget the first time I walked in.Baby dolls were everywhere you could imagine, each a different size and shape. They sat in rocking chairs, in a cozy corner alcove, on the mantel. One slept on the bed and another in an old-fashioned wooden cradle. As most little girls, I was drawn in and completely mesmerized. The dolls didn’t look anything like the ones I had at home. No Barbie dolls, no Tress doll or Little Women. They were…well…soft and pliable and all dressed in clothes that looked old. I remember feeling as if I had just walked into another place and time. My aunt, coming in behind me, smiled, puffing her chest out with pride.
“These are all my Bunny’s dolls from when she was a little girl. And rather than giving her clothes away when she outgrew them, I dressed my doll babies in them. See.”
She took me to the wooden cradle, a family heirloom of many years. A rag baby slept inside with a glass face. She was donned in a long, flowing Christening gown and cap, yellow with age. I watched Aunt Sis gingerly pick her up and hold her over her shoulder, as if burping her. I stared in awe, thinking how real the baby doll looked. A far away look came into my aunt’s eyes, reliving her daughter’s Christening from all those years ago. I went to the rocking chair, afraid to touch…even though my fingers itched to pick it up and see what it felt like.
“Go on,” Aunt Sis said, reading my mind. “She won’t break. Isn’t she pretty? She’s sitting in Bunny’s rocking chair and that precious blue chiffon dress was what she wore for her first birthday party.”
Aunt Sis was very family oriented and very sentimental. Calling her baby dolls doll babies was one of the many things that made her one in a million.
As I got older, more of the story unfolded. While Aunt Sis wanted to keep the memories of her daughter by dressing up her doll babies in their respective outfits, there was more to the story. It turned out Aunt Sis never got over her fetish for dolls. She loved and cherished them and never got over her little girl adoration. And once the truth was out of the bag, all the nieces in the family began buying “doll babies” for Aunt Sis for every birthday and Christmas. But rather than choosing doll babies that resembled Bunny, we all found ourselves on a quest for doll babies resembling Aunt Sis.
The last Christmas present I gave my aunt before she died was a doll baby I found at a garage sale. She was a rag doll dressed up in overalls, high boots, and huge sun hat. She was holding a watering can. A little chill shot through me. The doll baby resembled Aunt Sis when she toiled about in her garden of roses, vegetables and herbs. It was the perfect gift. When I gave it to Aunt Sis that year, she teared up and clutched it close to her heart and said she would cherish it forevermore.
Aunt Sis is fondly remembered in my family for her “Doll Babies” and her doll parties and doll house. But those are stories for another day. But for now, I imagine my aunt, floating about in the billowy white clouds, surrounded by “Doll Babies” with wings…
