Christmas 2024 Dolls

Most of my unwrapped doll-related Christmas gifts are captured in this photo.

CAUTION: This is a long post. 

I had another doll-filled Christmas this year. It began by redressing a few dolls in my collection. These were placed under or near the Christmas tree. One was placed on the fireplace hearth. Two were displayed in my doll room and have already been redressed in their original clothes.

This is an after-Christmas photo of Christmas-dressed dolls.

After Christmas, the 18-inch dolls and Kissy gathered together before returning to the doll room to return to the clothing they wore before Christmas (one had already been dressed for Christmas since last year!). 

A week to 10 days before Christmas I purchased the following dolls as Christmas presents for myself.

Lorna Paris one-of-a-kind girl and boy painted cloth dolls

Imagine my delight when this pair caught my attention a week or so before Christmas. Made in 2003 by Lorna Paris, they are both one-of-a-kind hand-painted cloth dolls. See the link to their museum installation below.

A 6-inch girl and a 12-inch fashion doll arrived after Christmas but are still considered Christmas gifts from me to me.

A 6-inch jointed little girl doll and a "European Fashion Model" with African American skin tone were both purchased from a China-based website that will remain nameless. (There are often issues with their products and/or shipping methods. Although I might buy from the site on a very rare occasion, I don't promote the site because of known problems I've had that I do not want anyone else to encounter because of my influence.) 

The little girl has dimpled cheeks.

She is jointed at the elbows and knees and her clothing is removable.

The above individual photo and a close-up of the little girl illustrate her dimpled cheeks and cute face. I'll write a separate post about the fashion doll.

Doll Gifts From Others

Barbie You Can Be Anything Doctor and Fashionista #221 Barbie

My husband doesn't usually buy dolls for me unless I ask for a specific doll. This year he purchased two without consulting me. Unfortunately, both are duplicates of dolls I already own. Fashionista #221 is a triplicate. I am keeping that one because she is fashioned after the first Black Barbie. The doctor is being returned. I considered deboxing and redressing the doctor, but she's going back. He said he chose these two because "they have Black women figures." (The Fashionista doesn't, but the doctor is on a Curvy Barbie body.)

Clothes, socks, and shoes for 18-inch dolls

My husband also purchased a T-shirt, socks, and shoes made for 18-inch dolls. The T-shirt is Angela-Davis-inspired. All of these items will be useful.

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She's That Girl Reign

She's That Girl Reign is part of a new line of 18-inch dolls designed to inspire young girls to be bold and authentically themselves. Reign was a gift from a friend. I took several photos of Reign and will include those in a separate blog post.

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Several dolls and doll-related gifts were in this shipping box.

I am always impressed with the beautiful gift-wrapping paper my friend, Debra uses. For this year's gifts, she used vintage-inspired Christmas wrapping paper. I took photos of two gifts to capture the beautiful paper.

Vintage-inspired Christmas paper with a white background features women dressed for Christmas, wrapping gifts, or holding gifts.

Vintage-inspired Christmas paper with a green background illustrates couples and other people in Christmas scenes.

The following are doll gifts from Debra.

Barbie Rewind 80s Edition Slumber Party Barbie

After she asked me what was on my wish list, to give her some idea of what to buy me, I sent Debra the link to the Barbie Rewind 80s Edition Slumber Party Barbie. 

The colorful graphics on the back of the box illustrate three dolls in the series.

Barbie-sized accessories include a pink TV, a rotary phone, lipstick, eyeshadow, a hair brush, a cassette-shaped doll stand, and a travel tumbler.

Barbie Rewind 80s Edition Barbie close-up

This lovely doll uses the retro Christie head sculpt that I have grown to love. I missed out on buying it when Amazon discounted it to $12 several months ago. Now I have the only doll I asked for for Christmas this year.

Deluxe Style Barbie Doll #4—She looks lovely in pink.

Style Bae Harper is a 10-inch vinyl doll with a flat body.

Style Bae Harper in a photograph from the side illustrates her flat body.

The back of Style Bae Harper's box illustrates the included accessories.

Style Bae Harper's package includes the doll, 1 doll stand, 7 fashion cards, 7 complete removable sticker outfits, 1 hairbrush, over 20 accessories, 1 cling tool, and 1 fashion rack.

A 12-inch plush The Original Elf and a cute fashion for The Elf on the Shelf girl (that Debra sent me last year) were part of this year's Christmas gifts.

The poseable Original Elf has orange sculpted hair and eyebrows.

The Claus Couture Elf on the Shelf Party Dress has a green sparkly bodice and a tartan plaid skirt.

Debra usually sends me the current year's Holiday Barbie Hallmark Keepsake ornament. She did not disappoint this year. I do not actively collect the Holiday Barbie dolls, but she knows I enjoy the annual ornaments.

The ornament was photographed from a different angle to better illustrate the face.

Inside this box is a Barbie Style fashion that I've wanted since it was released in 2023. (I did send Debra the buy link after I saw it on sale shortly after she asked "what's on your wish list?")

Each piece of the Barbie Style Urban Chic ensemble was individually enclosed in plastic envelopes. The fashion includes a certificate of authenticity.

This is the Urban Chic ensemble. (I could have made this a separate post, but I was on a roll.)

Designed by Suim Noh, the Urban Chic HJW95 Gold Label Barbie Style fashion includes belted wide-leg gray pinstripe trousers and a sleek white button-down cropped top, sneakers, sunglasses, a clutch, and a silver-tone bracelet.

Barbie Looks #21 (a doll I already had) wears Urban Chic as illustrated next. 

The fashion is worn with the sunglasses on.

She removed the sunglasses for this photo.

Not doll-related, but there are Princess Tiana dolls. So, next, I've included a photo of the lovely Princess Tiana travel tumbler received from Debra.

Isn't it beautiful?

Last but certainly not least, the last and heaviest gift at the bottom of the huge box of gifts from Debra was a doll I had recently searched for on the Internet to check the secondary market prices. Just as I suspected, the prices were through the roof, and I thought, "I should have bought her last year at the retail price." Well, who knew that Debra knew I wanted the 12 Days of Christmas Barbie! I didn't tell her, but somehow she knew. 

Barbie 12 Days of Christmas has a poinsettia-themed slide-off box cover.

With the box cover removed, 12 numbered drawers containing the doll and accessories are revealed.

The lovely Barbie that uses the Vintage Barbie sculpt was in drawer 1.

Barbie 12 Days of Christmas is seen in a close-up.

The back of the Barbie 12 Days of Christmas box illustrates the doll wearing the vintage-style green dress and modeling the extra red dress that is included in one of the numbered drawers. The other vintage-inspired surprises are illustrated on the back of the box.

The above Internet-captured photo of Barbie 12 Days of Christmas better illustrates the contents of this elaborate gift set. 

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I am grateful for family and friends who understand my doll passion and know that (unless it's a duplicate or triplicate) I will always welcome another Black doll, and sometimes I'll keep the duplicates and triplicates. 

Related Link

OOAK Painted Cloth Dolls

All photos and text are copyrighted and cannot be used elsewhere unless permission is granted by the author.

©Black Doll Collecting/dbg

There are countless items to collect and write about. Black dolls chose me.

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Thank you for reading. Comments that are not spam are appreciated. Spam comments will not be published, so don't waste your time. To contact me directly regarding dolls or any of my posts, please use the contact form on the right of the home page, which is visible in "web view." A link to web viewing should be visible at the bottom of this page.

If you're not already a subscriber, visit, "like" and follow the Black Doll Collecting Facebook page or bookmark the Black Doll Collecting home page and visit on Tuesdays and Thursdays when typically new posts are published.

Check out what I am selling here. 
Check out my eBay listings here.
Please follow my sister blog Ebony-Essence of Dolls in Black.
*New*Visit/Follow DeeBeeGee's Virtual Black Doll Museum
Donate here to support this blog. Thank you!

Baby Dear One and Kwanzaa

18-inch Vogue Baby Dear One by Vogue Dolls, c. 1964

Baby Dear One by Vogue, the doll featured in my previous blog post this week, was installed in DeeBeeGee's Virtual Black Doll Museum. The link to the installation has been added to the Sisters at Heart blog post and is included here.

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Happy Kwanzaa week!
 

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All photos and text are copyrighted and cannot be used elsewhere unless permission is granted by the author.

©Black Doll Collecting/dbg

There are countless items to collect and write about. Black dolls chose me.

__________

Thank you for reading. Comments that are not spam are appreciated. Spam comments will not be published, so don't waste your time. To contact me directly regarding dolls or any of my posts, please use the contact form on the right of the home page, which is visible in "web view." A link to web viewing should be visible at the bottom of this page.

If you're not already a subscriber, visit, "like" and follow the Black Doll Collecting Facebook page or bookmark the Black Doll Collecting home page and visit on Tuesdays and Thursdays when typically new posts are published.

Check out what I am selling here. 
Check out my eBay listings here.
Please follow my sister blog Ebony-Essence of Dolls in Black.
*New*Visit/Follow DeeBeeGee's Virtual Black Doll Museum
Donate here to support this blog. Thank you!

Sisters at Heart

A promotional image from the 1970 Bewitched episode, "Sisters at Heart" includes the main characters of Bewitched; Dick Sargent (Darrin) holding David Lawrence (Adam), Elizabeth Montgomery (Samantha), and Erin Murphy (Tabitha).

A member of my Facebook group posted the leading photo of this post. Copied below is my answer to the photo question, "Anyone know the doll [Tabatha] (Erin Murphy) is holding?"

Vogue Baby Dear One dolls in sizes 18 inches with rooted hair and 12 inches with molded/sculpted hair are perfectly posed.

That's Baby Dear One by Vogue, the larger doll in the attached photo. This picture (of the Bewitched cast) is from the Bewitched episode Sisters at Heart when Tabitha's Black friend, Lisa, spent the night. The episode, written by a group of Black high school English-class students who had attended the set of Bewitched, involves a racist bigot who thought Darrin was married to a Black woman when he visited the Stephens' home unannounced and Lisa answered the door. The bigot thought Lisa was Darrin's daughter and that Darrin was married to a Black woman. Read more at the link.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisters_at_Heart

I remember discussing the 1970 "Sisters at Heart" episode of Bewitched several months before the recent Facebook group post. However, I cannot find the past discussion thread. Because I want to document the important details of this Bewitched episode to include that a Black high school English class  wrote the episode under the direction of their teacher, and Baby Dear One is the black doll that Tabitha holds in the photo, I sat down to write this post and to create an installation in my virtual black doll museum for the Baby Dear One dolls in my collection.

An AI-generated answer to my question, "Who was the Thomas Jefferson High School teacher in Los Angeles, California whose students wrote the Bewitched episode Sisters at Heart?" provides specific details. 

Marcella Saunders was the (23-year-old African American) English teacher at Thomas Jefferson High School in Los Angeles whose 10th-grade students wrote the Bewitched episode "Sisters at Heart."

How it happened
Saunders noticed that her students struggled with reading and writing at a high school level, and were more familiar with television than poetry or short stories. She decided to teach her students using a television series they liked, and contacted the studios for Bewitched, Room 222, and Julia. Only Bewitched responded.

Venetta Rogers
Venetta Rogers played the role of Lisa Wilson (Tabitha's "sister at heart"). The following quote is from the Facebook page of The Bewitched History Book by David Pierce:

In 1970 Ms. Rogers' mother was the Assistant Superintendent for the Los Angeles Unified School District, and was instrumental in organizing and bringing together 23-year-old teacher Marcella Saunders, Elizabeth Montgomery, and Bill Asher (Elizabeth Montgomery's husband). Ms. Saunders' 10th grade English class wrote what would become "Sisters at Heart." Consequently, her (the assistant superintendent's) daughter Venetta was chosen for the part of Lisa in the episode.

Today Ms. Rogers and her mother continue to cherish the memories of their wonderful experience and will always think of “Bewitched” as their favorite series. Ms. Rogers loved working with the cast; especially Elizabeth Montgomery and Erin Murphy, and felt like a close friend to Erin. She will never forget how kind the Murphy family treated her during and after the episode. Ms. Rogers says that this was one of the most delightful and fun experiences of her life.

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I am impressed that a young educator used a relatable approach to teach her struggling English students and that Elizabeth Montgomery welcomed the script of what became her favorite episode of the Bewitched series. 

18-inch Vogue* Baby Dear One

The 18-inch doll, Baby Dear One, designed by Eloise Wilkin (notable doll designer and children's book illustrator), was made in different sizes with or without rooted hair. The 18-inch black doll with rooted hair was used as Tabitha's doll in Sisters at Heart. Baby Dear One's release date was sometime after 1964, the copyright year of the head sculpt, but before 1970. Read more about Baby Dear One in a past blog post here. View the Virtual Black Doll Museum installation here.

*In 2014 Vogue Dolls became a victim of political and economic developments which led to the government of China suddenly closing the manufacturing plant and seizing all of the company's molds and products. (The Origins of the Ginny Doll.)

View still images from "Sisters at Heart" here.

View the ending segment of Sisters at Heart here. (Tabitha is seen holding Baby Dear One in this segment.):

Related Link:

The Origins of the Ginny Doll

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All photos and text are copyrighted and cannot be used elsewhere unless permission is granted by the author.

©Black Doll Collecting/dbg

There are countless items to collect and write about. Black dolls chose me.

__________

Thank you for reading. Comments that are not spam are appreciated. Spam comments will not be published, so don't waste your time. To contact me directly regarding dolls or any of my posts, please use the contact form on the right of the home page, which is visible in "web view." A link to web viewing should be visible at the bottom of this page.

If you're not already a subscriber, visit, "like" and follow the Black Doll Collecting Facebook page or bookmark the Black Doll Collecting home page and visit on Tuesdays and Thursdays when typically new posts are published.

Check out what I am selling here. 
Check out my eBay listings here.
Please follow my sister blog Ebony-Essence of Dolls in Black.
*New*Visit/Follow DeeBeeGee's Virtual Black Doll Museum
Donate here to support this blog. Thank you!

Mia by Nines d'Onil

Mia by Nines d'Onil

Mia by Nines d'Onil is a 12-inch all-soft-vinyl doll made in Spain. This slightly vanilla-scented doll is so funny-looking to me that she's cute. 

A full-view photograph of Mia was taken after she arrived.

Mia arrived wearing only panties to which a mini brochure of Nines d'Onil's doll collection was attached.

This is the front of the mini brochure.

This is the back of the Nines d'Onil brochure.

Before Mia arrived, I knew I would dress her for Christmas, and I had a Christmas sweater (wine bottle cover) in mind.

A selection of Christmas sweater wine bottle covers were considered as clothes for Mia.

My sweater ornaments have small neck hole openings that could have posed a dressing problem. Fortunately, Mia's soft vinyl head pops off easily. However, none of my wine bottle covers suited Mia or me, but a Santa jacket ornament that was a gift from a doll friend a few years ago worked. 

Mia wears a Santa jacket ornament.

With her head off and her arms lowered, I squeezed Mia's body into the Santa jacket ornament, which only has a head and hemline opening. Next, I was able to shift each arm into its respective armhole. I found lacy white socks and vintage black doll shoes that fit her wide feet. 

Mia holds a Christmas stocking.

A close-up of Mia's stocking better illustrates it.

Mia holds a knit Christmas stocking and looks quite adorable, in my opinion.

She even looks cute from a rear view.

Mia is now in a holiday display with two Matunda Ya Kwanzaa Father Santas.

Mia has now been incorporated into this year's Christmas decor. 

Nines d'Onil makes 9-inch versions of Mia. If I find one with brown-textured hair, Mia will get a little sister. Until then, she will remain an only child of this brand.
__________

All photos and text are copyrighted and cannot be used elsewhere unless permission is granted by the author.

©Black Doll Collecting/dbg

There are countless items to collect and write about. Black dolls chose me.

__________

Thank you for reading. Comments that are not spam are appreciated. Spam comments will not be published, so don't waste your time. To contact me directly regarding dolls or any of my posts, please use the contact form on the right of the home page, which is visible in "web view." A link to web viewing should be visible at the bottom of this page.

If you're not already a subscriber, visit, "like" and follow the Black Doll Collecting Facebook page or bookmark the Black Doll Collecting home page and visit on Tuesdays and Thursdays when typically new posts are published.

Check out what I am selling here. 
Check out my eBay listings here.
Please follow my sister blog Ebony-Essence of Dolls in Black.
*New*Visit/Follow DeeBeeGee's Virtual Black Doll Museum
Donate here to support this blog. Thank you!