Samantha in Montpelier

In the hotel lobby

Sam here.  The week before Christmas, the human, her male counterpart, and I took a little weekend trip to Montpelier, VT.  Since it was supposed to snow, I commandeered the new purple velvet cloak.  We stayed in the Capitol Plaza, right in the center of Montpelier.

First stop, the Vermont History Museum

The snow did not start Friday night when we drove up, but by Saturday morning, there was a lovely little snowstorm.  But the museum was right across the street from the hotel, and wonderfully deserted thanks to the snow.  It was just me, the human, and the museum employee (who gave the human a little sample book someone sent them.  It's too big for us, but the human will miniaturize it.).

The museum had some really interesting objects, like a Civil War medicine case of leather with little glass vials.  I do believe that the human should make us one.  Not shown here was the obligatory Bernie Sanders campaign poster from 1983 (it is Vermont, after all).

Outdoors, it was turning into a winter wonderland.

Christmas shopping at the Farmer's Market

By early afternoon, the snow had died down, and the humans decided to venture to their favorite distillery.  I came along for some nice scenery.  (The less said about the condition of the roads, the better.  The humans only drove into a snowbank once.)

Winter scenery

In the evening, we made a trip up to Burlington for dinner with the human's friends, and some lovely street scenes.

And when we got back to Montpelier, the tree in front of the state house was lit, so we went out for more photos.

Opening the Christmas Trunk

It's Nora this time.  It's still Christmas, at least until January 5th, which means we'll continue to post all about our holiday adventures for the next week.  Or until the human gets sick of it.  Which ever comes first.  We didn't get wrapped presents, but we did get this wonderful holiday trunk.

As for what's inside...

Lots and lots of wonderful things.

On the very top is a little vintage book on the wonderful and brilliant Lady Ada Lovelace, her of the computer programming and analytical engine and Fibonacci sequence fame (also a steampunk inventor, but that's a different story).  The human picked up the book from an antique book fair.  As it happens, collecting miniature books is a thing humans do, but the books are frequently rather pricey.  We won't tell you how much this one cost, but it was one of the cheaper ones, or so the human says.

The books was immediately claimed by Kana.

The trunk unpacked.

The rest of the holiday haul included a pair of lace fans and nosegays (claimed by Sam and Nellie), a vintage picture book of an old English garden (ditto), a music box and nutcracker (decorations for the house), various science models (Lily), a spice grinder (for the kitchen), drafting tools (Shep, though her real present is something much more entertaining), a vintage camera (Cauth), and a fancy holiday apron and cookie cutters (mine).

Smiling for the camera!

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays!

The human didn't have time to sew us all brand new Christmas outfits this year, so we went through the trunks of old clothing.  Cauthrien and Anora are wearing the blue leather, brocade, and velvet ensembles from Christmas 2015.  Lily is wearing a silk brocade gown made from Felicity's Christmas dress pattern the human made in early 2015 (details here).

Kana's dress of silver satin with rose and black lace trim was made roughly the same time from a free pattern offered by the United Federation of Doll Clubs (pattern here, older pictures here).  Shep is wearing the mix-and-match suit set from spring 2016.

Sam's red velvet dress never got properly documented before, but it was made in fall 2014, and features glass buttons and pearl trim.  Nellie gets the one new dress of this season, with a one-shoulder black and silver cherry brocade bodice and a black velvet skirt studded with rhinestones.

Guess who helped decorate?

It's meeeeow.

Newbery Book Reviews: The Blue Sword

Cauth here.  It's pretty rare that I get to be the spokesdoll for the week, seeing how it's usually some combination of Kana, Lily, or Shep, but I'm the one who actually enjoys reading fantasy novels, particularly anything with swordfighting, so I claimed this week's show-and-tell-and-book-report.

While we're all binge-reading Newbery books, I have to show off two of my favorites:  'The Blue Sword' and 'The Hero and the Crown' by Robin McKinley.  Damar is a strange land of magic and history that's now a desert populated mostly by nomadic tribes.  And we still don't know what's up the Northerners (creepy magic) or Homeland (aka Great Britain), but we do get to know Damar.  First though Harry's eyes (The Blue Sword) as she get kidnapped, becomes an awesome magical warrior with a magical sword, and saves the kingdom (and incidentally finding out her great-grandmother was a tribeswoman, so she comes by the magic naturally), and then we learn the ancient history of Aerin (The Hero and the Crown) and how the Blue Sword came to be and how Damar became what it is now.

Both books are highly recommended for any human or doll that enjoys solid adventures with female characters who are actually well-written well-rounded people (that tend towards being tomboys, but that comes with the territory of 1980s sword-and-sorcery)

Humans have libraries and bookstores.  Dolls can get their copy of 'The Blue Sword' from here instead.

The Blue Sword

Instructions

Book Reviews: His Dark Materials

Kana here.  After last time's wonderful reglious allegory, we have something similiar and altogether different.  We're honestly surprised no one's tried to ban these books yet given the not-so-hidden message about religion and growing up.  (It does seem like the best children's books are about growing up, doesn't it?)

The human couldn't find the UK versions of the covers, so we got the first US edition instead.  We are fairly sure the human has the same editions on her bookshelf.

For a doll's visit to Lyra's Oxford:
The Golden Compass
Instructions

Newbery Book Reviews: Little House on the Prarie

Nora here.  We're fairly certain that this set of books really needs no introduction as they seem to have been required reading for any history-loving female between the ages of 8 and 12 for at least 5 decades, and closer to 8.  However, it still took us quite some time to convince the human to make us a set for ourselves.

There's many editions, but we decided to go with the 1950s reprints with the Garth Williams illustrations as opposed to the original 1930s books.  The one book that is missing is 'The First Four Years', which is more of an add-on than part of the core series written by Laura Ingalls Wilder (and ghost-written by Rose Wilder Lane).  Perhaps our next book should be a doll edition of 'Pioneer Girl'.

Alas, the human couldn't find the full dust jacket illustrations, so we're stuck with simple hardcovers.

But the books all have the correct illustrations next to the correct text.  The human found the illustrations by searching auction sites, and then finding the right ones.  There was a stack of human-sized Little House books that she was comparing ours to while she was making them.

And the bonus book this week:

Little House in the Big Woods

Instructions

Book Reviews: The Chronicles of Narnia

Nora here.  I am rather sure that most if not all of the books on our bookshelves these days are classics of one sort or another, and the Chronicles of Narnia most definitely qualify.  The human even found the original dust jackets for them.

I think our favorite of the series is either 'Voyage of the Dawn Treader' or 'Prince Caspian'.  Something about the first book (perhaps it was one too many elementary school plays that the human watched) just didn't appeal to us.

Also, these may be the only books that we have a fanfiction recommendation for.  If you like Anthony Bourdain's culinary adventures, there's this delightful fic about dining in Narnia
No Reservations: Narnia.  It's well worth the read and will make you hungry.  Don't read on an empty stomach.

And to add to your doll library:

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Instructions

Honeydukes Treats

Sam here to show off the huge variety of treats from our Honeydukes snack cart.  It being December, and thus Christmas, we asked for a giant pile of peppermint candy.

The glass jar is actually from a tiny Yankee Candle Company candle.  It's also the perfect size to store our stash of ribbon candy.  And the human managed to find some super tiny (1" square) ziploc bags for all the tiny peppermints.  The peppermints come in red, green, and super swirly.  (They were totally not made with random bits of clay left over from making ribbon candy.  Nope.)

Here it is super close up for scale.  The ribbon candy actually comes in three different patterns, and so do the candy canes.

Then we've got some butter and chocolate cookies.  The human always stockpiles Danish butter cookies during the holidays, so we figured we should too.

We also got some new petit fours with a fleur-de-lis decoration and matching pastel macarons.

For the Honeydukes specialties, we have a set (many sets, really) of wizard snacks with a cauldron cake, a pumpkin pastie, and a pair of chocolate frogs (milk and dark chocolate, thank you very much).

And finally, we have a trio of Christmas themed macarons.  The red and green macarons have a white cream filling, and the swirl macaron has a chocolate filling.  Now we just need the human to sit down and watch the Great British Bake Off for more inspiration for more food for us.  I still want a full afternoon tea menu with scones and finger sandwiches.