The Jennifer Blogs

I love Christmas. Growing up in upstate NY meant there was always snow on Christmas. When I was a kid I didn't appreciate the snow and the cold weather like I do now. I guess you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.

That, and living in Florida for so many years has given me proper perspective. It's just not supposed to be 80 degrees on Christmas Day.



My favorite gift as a kid was the dollhouse Santa brought me when I was about 7 years old. It wasn't big enough for my Barbie dolls to live in, but I did have these neat little cornhusk dolls that fit in there perfectly. The Cornhusk Family.

My little brother Charlie loved his boy toys, but he also seemed to get great enjoyment out of my dollhouse. Mom told me that when I was gone to a friend's house or at school, Charlie would play with my dolls in my house all day long. Mom would realize the house was really quiet, so she'd go in search of the boy. There he was – in the middle of my floor – playing with my dollhouse and The Cornhusk Family.



The only problem with Charlie playing with my dollhouse was that he wasn't careful enough. I was much more cautious than he was with the handling of my fragile cornhusk dolls. (Okay, maybe not fragile, but certainly not as well made as the plastic Barbie dolls.) Every time I would let Charlie play with them, one of the Cornhusk family would end up beheaded. I'm not sure why I let him continue playing with them, but I did, and eventually I had a family of headless cornhusk dolls.



I eventually lost interest in the dollhouse when I had nobody to live in it. But, just because I stopped playing with it didn't mean I didn't still want it. It just sat there in the corner of my room, not being used. I guess Mom took that to mean it wasn't important to me.



Right before Christmas a few years later, Mom had a brilliant idea. She was going to get filthy rich off my dad. She was going to have him make dollhouses and she would sell them. I have no idea who she was going to sell them to or how she was going to sell them. But I did know how she was going to make them. She was going to put a pattern together so my dad could make them. Because she didn't have a pattern readily available, she took my dollhouse apart. She told me she would be very careful and that she would put it back together again.



So down came the walls. The floors were removed. The roof came off. Our dining room table had wood everywhere. Thing is, Mom wasn't sure which piece of wood went where. It all looked so much alike.



Mom never could figure out how to make a pattern, so Dad never built her any dollhouses to sell. Of course, that means Mom didn't get filthy rich in the Dollhouse Business. I never got my dollhouse put back together either. But we had a great fire that night.