Hi. My name is Rachel and I love American Girl dolls.
There. I said it.
The obsession began when I was around 9 years old. My friend C-from-Ohio and I would pore over the catalogue for hours. I have very happy memories of that. Neither of us liked 1940s Molly, but she wanted to someday have pioneer Kirsten and I wanted...*sob*... victorian Samantha.
Why the sobs? Why the POST? Because American Girl has gone from being owned by small, friendly Pleasant Company to belonging to corporate giant Mattel. The quality hasn't gone down much, but the empire has expanded from 3 dolls for bigger little girls, with corresponding child-sized period clothing, and one baby doll for smaller little girls, to an empire covering AG and Bitty Baby dolls in every hair and eye color combination you can think of, plus oodles more period themed dolls, plus contemporary clothes for kids, plus books, plus random other things. And now they are going to retire Samantha. They call it "sending her to the archives" and this is the first time in my 20 year love affair that I am aware of them doing that. I don't own Samantha. Even after lusting for her incessantly, when I was given a chance to have an AG doll, I picked the Colonial era doll, Felicity. She was a great first doll and I don't regret the choice, but I've always had a soft spot for Samantha. And now Samantha is going to be...*sniff*...gonnnnnnne. Which makes me feel like they are stamping on a little piece of my childhood and also kind of makes me feel old.
So I'm in mourning and you get to hear about it. I'm not rushing out to spend 90 bucks and snap her up at the last minute (since I have real doll babies to dress up now), mind you. But I'm sad, ok?
4 comments:
Would you believe I never heard of AG until just a couple of years ago? Only when I saw Jon and Kate + 8 go the the AG store in New York did I realize how huge they are. I only hope I never have to spend so much money on a doll for Sprite!
I know you told me not to laugh but I had to. Just a little, I couldn't help it. The AG dolls always scared me, I was more of a Cabbage Patch girl.....
Jen- I hope that for you too! But chances are she'll find out about them, and then the nagging will begin. Don't say I didn't warn you!
Casey- Really? And here I always thought the Cabbage Patch dolls were the scary ones! :)
I went to Chicago on a business trip last year. They have an AG store there that is like a world of its own! It has a "hair salon" to get your dolls hair done, there's the clothing, the cafe...it goes on and on. I always liked Molly because she was like me, brown hair and glasses. (not to frilly)
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