Do Not Drop or Throw

(I have buried the lead on this story. Please persist to the end.)

I think I was five, maybe six, years old when I got the best Christmas present of my life. 

I was not a particularly girly little girl--I preferred books to dolls--but somehow I had fixated on the idea  that tea parties were the height of sophisticated childhood activities. (I blame those books, which often featured little girls serving pretend tea to their friends and parents.) And not just any tea party--my wonderful tea parties would serve their pretend tea and pretend fancy cakes on real china doll dishes. 

Thus began my campaign for that year's Christmas present. I wanted real china doll dishes with the same single-minded fervor that Ralphie wanted his Red Ryder BB Gun With a Compass in the Stock, and I was persistent and unwavering in my insistence that this was the only Christmas present that would make me truly happy.

My family wasn't poor by any measure, but a single-income family of seven in the late 1950s was not likely to spend a lot of money on Christmas presents. Real china doll dishes would be on the upper end of the gift budget so I'm sure my mother tried to divert my attention to other possibilities--a doll, maybe? Or a game of some kind? She also was aware that I wasn't old enough to understand the concept of fragility. If I didn't break all of those dishes before Easter rolled around it would be a true Christmas miracle. 

Still, I was unrelenting. I wanted real china doll dishes, and my mother was a saint.

That Christmas morning, I unwrapped a green-striped box whose cardboard lid lifted  to reveal stacks of tiny plates and cups, a miniature serving platter and tureen, and even a pair of doll-sized salt and pepper shakers. If you have ever gotten exactly what you dreamed of but never thought would be possible, you know my excitement.

As I look back, I see that the import of the real china doll dishes was more theoretical than actual. I don't recall a single time my Much Older Sister and I had tea parties with those rose-painted cups, although I'm sure we did. What I was hoping for was to be the kind of person who wanted to socialize, to share conversation and friendship with other girls. I wanted something beautiful. 

I scrawled "DO NOT DROP OR THROW" on the lid in hopes my younger siblings (who could not read yet) would respect the box's precious contents. Against all odds, the dishes survived until, as I got older, they went into storage. I never forgot they were there, though, and I dreamed of the day I would have a tea party with my own little girls. 

Well. 

You know the next phase of this story. None of my four sons really appreciated the societal and psychological importance of tea parties, so the green-striped box remained in a cupboard. These sons grew up and married and began having my grandchildren. 

Baby Wonderful#1 and Baby Wonderful#2 are the most delightful, charming, smart, kind grandchildren ever. They are boys and I have loved them to distraction, even as my dreams of real china tea parties dimmed.

This week BabyWonderful#3 was born, and friends, it's a girl!

She is gorgeous and vocal and chubby-cheeked, with her mother's beautiful eyes and her grandmother's thunder thighs. 

And her first Christmas present from her Meemaw will be a green-striped box containing a set of real china doll dishes and the promise that some day we'll share pretend tea and cookies accompanied by giggles and love.

Do not drop or throw your dreams--they really may come true.

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