Ghosts of Christmas Past

One of the best Christmas gifts I ever received was a Sindy doll’s dining set from my father’s sister, my Aunt Kathy.

Aunt Kathy always bought my sisters and I the best presents. She had three boys and I think she relished the chance to hit the girl’s section of the toy store. Many of my most beloved gifts were from Aunt Kathy. I mean, she’s the one who bought me The Barbie Beauty Center Styling Head too. Oh, I can still smell it-the plastic, sweet smell. I remember the way the powdery, blue eye shadow glided onto Barbie’s perfect eyelids, smooth as silk. And how her hair, always satin blonde, immediately became tangled, never to be like new again.

But back to Sindy’s dining room set. A creamy, French provincial style. It was made for Sindy dolls but at my house, Barbie took it over. Barbie was kind of priviledged and tended to think the world revolved around her so she often furnished her life from the spoils she stole from other dolls. She took my Jody doll’s dog and, worse, stole the Sunshine Family’s baby in some private adoption scheme. (Those poor hippies didn’t stand a chance against Barbie’s lawyers.) So of course, before Sindy knew it, her dining set was in Barbie’s townhouse.

At the time of my accumulation of these wonders of 1970s toy technology, we lived in a 100-year-old, colonial house in Ohio. The entire third floor was the attic and our playroom. We had one entire half of the space (which means half the footprint of the house!). It had two small windows that cranked open and the biggest lilac-colored throw rug ever. It was freezing cold in the winter and boiling hot the summer and we loved it. It was our domain and my mom rarely trekked up two stories to see what we were doing. When I read classic children’s literature, like The Saturdays, and their playrooms are described, I think about how lucky I was to have such a space as a child as well. We had a small record player and a collection of my parent’s old records as well as some children’s music, so there was often the sound of either The Carpenter’s Greatest Hits or the Mr, Slim Goodbody album wafting down the stairs.

Although huge, the lilac carpet still left a bit of the attic’s wood floor bare. The floor was original to the house and over time, the temperature fluctuations left sizeable gaps between the boards and we often lost small toys in the gaps. So slowly, over time, we lost the entire set of tiny cutlery that came with Sindy’s dining set between the boards. I assume that eventually a later owner of the house finished the attic, and I often wonder what they thought when they pulled up those boards to find a silverware service for twelve, each piece measuring ½ inch, scattered beneath the floor. It was must have looked as though The Borrowers had been living in the attic.

I’d love to hear about some of your favorite Christmas gifts and toys. And, if you want to see more of the contents of our 1970s/1980s attic playroom, I’ve created a pinboard. I’d love to know if you had some of the same toys!