Christmas Treasures

This little red-outfitted sweetie is a handmade miniature of a doll that belonged to my older sister. (And I was lucky enough to have one, too.) The doll was a Christmas version of the Rose O’Neill Kewpie doll, all dressed in red. You can see the little bumps on her shoulders made by the wings under her jolly red suit. The trip to the downtown Marshall Field’s department store to purchase the doll (my sister loved them so much she wore them out, and they had to be replaced several times over the years) was part of the Kewpie mystique. My doll is long gone, but when I got my first home and was decorating my first Christmas tree, my sister Carlie stitched up this tiny rendition of her beloved doll for me to hang on my tree each year. I’m always so glad to see Kewpie’s smiling face when I unpack the ornaments in December. (And in the photo she's being kept company by a pine cone angel I got at a Brownies Christmas party when I was 7.)