It is very curious to me how, as an adult, I forget from one year to the next what I got for Xmas the previous year but I have very vivid memories of what I was given when I was a child.
My most memorable Xmas present believe it or not was a Kewpie doll. My sister, Jocelyn, also got a Kewpie doll exactly the same as mine. We played with them for hours, days and weeks. We played with them so much that they eventually, after a few years, broke and had to be thrown out. My mum made clothes for them and we treated them as our babies.
When I was a stay-at-home mum with Russell and Raewyn, Jocelyn and I decided to go to ceramic doll making classes. Guess what doll I chose to make first? Yes, a Kewpie doll. It now has pride of place on my lounge bookcase. I wonder what my grandchildren will think of my Kewpie doll.
My Ceramic Kewpie Doll
For some reason the most memorable childhood present I got is a wooden recorder. I think that year I was also given a golden necklace of my name. Unfortunate I must have had a nervous habit of bending my name necklace and it eventually snapped in half. I was a careless child. Even further back in my Christmas memories I remember a wooden cot, and a small doll to put to sleep in it. I think I called the doll pebbles, yes I was a Flintstone fan. Perhaps I got another doll the same year that I called Bam Bam.