Dollies Adventures

Christmas 1997 (Season 3)

I was setting up our crèche under the tree. We have been buying the Italian line of Fontini Christmas/stable characters for a couple of years. And, being totally besotted with Xena, I stuck my Xena 1 dollie in the stable. To my great delight, I discovered that she was a perfect match in size for them.

The first day we put her in there was a little rough--we came home and one of the wise men was knocked down, the camel and sheep were scattered and one of the blond shepherdesses looked VERY disheveled. But after a day or two, Xena established her place and began to enjoy herself. She would hang around the manger, talking to Mary, (helping her to get that virgin birth story worked out--very ironic, since this was pre-Deliverer) helping Joseph out with a little carpentry, throwing the baby Jesus around with the village girls, riding the camels, advising the Wise Men on navigation and shoring up the stables' defenses. She was pretty devastated when the stable was put away in early February. (We were having too much fun with it, alright?) But shortly after that my partner found her some star wars guys and she hangs around with them now--but they're kind of short for her.

Christmas 1998 (Season Four)

I got out our creche out last night. We have those Italian Fontini nativity figures which we have been purchasing for years and which I think is really cool because they have LOTS of characters, which of course leads to people buying LOTS of products from them. It's kind of like being into

Barbie. Or XWP.

Well, as I've told you before, the original Xena I dollie is exactly the right size to fit in with the Fontini folks. I decided I would set up the creche first and then bring Xena out to join them.

When I went into the bedroom to get the dollie, I realized that the new Xena sword drawing dollie is pretty close in size to Xena Dollie 1. So I thought I might try her out this year, figuring that then the new Gabrielle dollie could be part of the nativity scene too. (And praying that it wouldn't remind her of that bad karma god implantation thingy in her past...)

So I brought the girls out and stood them by the stable. The blond shepardess and the wise man who looks like Rafe got all excited to see Xena again and the three of them began to make plans for some Christmas partying and wassailing cheer. "Niiice newww ouuuutfiiit" purred the shepardess stroking Xena's leather skirt. The wise man who claims to be Marcus reincarnated spotted Xena and casually sauntered over. He stopped directly in front of her, posed, gave her that hunky smile of his and said, "Gods, you've grown some, Doll." (None of them quite realized this was a whole new Xena dollie--well, they haven't seen her for nearly a year now.)

Gabrielle got VERY pissed. She is just a bit sensitive over being "the new kid on the block". We are NOT having good Christmas vibes right now. (Wait'll I bring in Callisto...)

Last year I bought the Fontini bird collection because it has a rooster. Being fumble-fingered, I have asked my partner to take a very small washer, cut it in half, paint it up like a chakram and glue it to the rooster's chest. A little red paint splashed on the rooster’s chest also and we can all enjoy my favorite scene from BTDT as we sing our Christmas carols.

Gods, I LOVE the holidays.

Posted 1/99 (Season Four)

I was taking down the creche today and realized that I had never finished the stable story I posted last month. So here's "the rest of the story..."

I had decided that this year, rather than using the traditional Xena 1 dollie, I would put the new Xena sword drawing dollie in our creche so that the matching Gabrielle dollie could be part of the holiday fun too.

Feeling that maybe Xena dollie 1 might feel left out, I decided that she could come to Mexico on our winter vacation with us. I would pack her away in my carry on so no one would steal her from the checked luggage.

We got down to Mexico, where it was 100 degrees warmer than it had been here. AHHHHHHHH. I managed to fail the traffic light test. As you go through customs, you press a button which randomly selects red or green on a traffic-light-looking machine. If it's green you go off and frolic, if it's red, you must have your luggage hand-checked by a customs official.

I went over to the loser's table and there was this extremely young Mexican woman, maybe all of 17, weighed about 83 pounds, who was the customs official. I gave her my warmest I'm-an-American-therefore-I'm-stupid-foreign-travel-smile. As she unzipped my luggage, I suddenly

remembered the 57 pages of Xena fanfic which I had printed out to read on the trip. Stuff which could be considered oh....somewhat "racy", shall we say, for this officially conservative, modest country which doesn’t even allow girlie magazines to be sold publicly. My smile faltered a bit, as I wondered a). How rapidly can I eat 57 pages of pornographic fanfic? b.) How surreptitiously can I eat them? And c.) On the bright side, perhaps if I got tourista, it would be a good and helpful thing I ate them. (For the roughage, you know?)

False alarm, she only glanced at them. Perhaps her English classes at the local Catholic Grammar School did not have some of those words on their vocabulary list. The euphemisms would be okay--steaming fruit (must be boiled papaya!)--hot peaked jewels—you know, that could be just parts of regular speech. After delicately tossing my stuff around a little bit she just smiled at me and welcomed me to Mexico. (Thank the gods I'm slow at panic reactions or I'd probably still be picking bits of computer paper out of my teeth.)

We stepped outside where there was a toy stand. I immediately noticed a little pink bicycle in a bubble pack. It was a faux Barbie package--the Barbie persona on the package was just really tough looking--squinty eyes, ultra-teased blonde hair (little black roots and all) slutty clothes and a real sneer on her face. I decided on the spur of the moment to buy the bike for the Xena 1 dollie since she would be with us as we unwrapped our presents on Christmas Day and gods help us if SHE didn't get any.

The horrid news was that when we got to the hotel, I discovered that Xena 1 dollie was gone! Somebody must have stolen here out of my luggage when I wasn't looking. I was devastated--she's REAL hard to replace. Weep.

Her little bike became like Tiny Tim’s crutches left in the corner for me, constantly reminding me of my loss. Very sad.

Anyway, *sigh* when we got back home, we found that things had NOT been going well in the creche.

You know the Xena 1 dollie is a kind of rough-edged dollie because she has no ball and chain, whoops, pardon, little bard to tone her down. Last year she had quite the time in the stable, partying, tossing the baby Jesus around with the villagers, taking various wise men, angels, shepardesses and drummer boys up into the hills behind the stable to "look at that big bright star". Just having a real good time.

Well, the stable folks thought this was the SAME Xena. Sword Drawing Xena gets in there and immediately all these people come on to her, they start reminiscing, they're pulling out the wine skins, they're touching her and asking her to take a walk with them, suggesting to her "Hey, warrior, why don't you come upstairs and check out the new hayloft sometime?". Just lots of wink, wink, nudge, nudge going on. Well, the Gabrielle dollie was livid!

From the shape of the stable, just going by the holes in the walls and the broken beams, there were quite a few knock down and drag out fights. The wise man who looks like Rafe and the wise man who claims to be Marcus reincarnated got into it and broke the frankincense vessel to bits, spilling and losing all of it and making a mess of the tiny pieces of hay.

One male angel and one female angel had ripped each others flowing Banners of Peace to hanging shreds. Gabrielle and the blond shepardess were both carrying scratches and black eyes and had ended up tangled in an all energy expended, dazed, inert heap under the manger. (They both did have their ears intact, thank goodness.)

The Xena dollie just looked totally exhausted and contrite and was wringing her hands and blaming herself for everything, of course. (Don't forget, she's a season four Xena.)

Worst of all—I was told that the blessed mother had had to yell at them ALL.

After picking everybody back up and making sure nobody was broken, I turned my back on the scene of carnage. As I unpacked my clothes and shoved them into their drawers, I made a GREAT DISCOVERY. Xena 1 dollie was lolling around in my underwear drawer! YYYYAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY.

Gods, was I glad to see her. (No, I didn’t ask her either how she had got so tangled up in my underwear that I hadn’t noticed her in Mexico OR how the heck she had managed to work her way back home from all the way down there on her own--those of you who house a Xena 1 dollie would understand you just don't question her. Ever)

Well, the Fontini creche figures are all put away in the shed now, so things are settling down some. Gabrielle dolly is still really pissed and Sword Xena dollie is still paying for it. The little droning, complaining voice from their corner of the top bunk just goes on and on and on and on.

Xena 1 dollie likes her bike (she doesn’t know that pink is for "girls" heh heh) but she refuses to wear the bicycle helmet. Every time I turn my back, it gets hurled halfway across the room. Sigh, what can you do?

Oh, by the way, on the way home on the plane, I scored some little drink stirrers which look just like pike poles--they got this little spear head on them. So now when they bring out Debt Xena Dollie, I can go to a thrift Shop and buy old action figures and rip their heads off. Then I can make a little patch of little heads on poles for Evil Xena to play with. I think she'll be grateful. I'm trying to think of ways to incorporate them into the creche scene next year. Use them for a little picket fence? Decorate them with tiny sparkling lights? Put little elf hats on them? Well, I've got time yet...

KT

Note: I saw in the paper that XWP does show in Mexico City, but I couldn’t find it in the city where we were. She's listed as Princessa Guerrera.