Christmas Dinner Was Delayed...

[Blondine Arc-En-Ciel]

I had Christmas dinner with my neighbors last night, the 20th of...January.

They were out of town during the holiday season and this was the earliest we could get together afterwards.

I've know them for over 10 years. Until about two years ago, they lived in the same apartment house as I do. They bought a small house about 100 meters up the street about two years ago. There's Shirley, 35 and recently widowed and her daughter, Marie-Louise, 9. A long time back I learned that Shirley played with Blondine dolls as a child. For her following birthday, I gave Marie-Louise a small MIB RB in the European package. Both she and her mom went crazy over that! From time to time I'd give M-L other BAEC toys from everywhere, including a loose Kitty Brite and a sleeping bag.

Anyway, they arrived at 6:30 PM for dinner and I got M-L to do most of the cooking under my supervision. We had dinner and went to the living room. I started passing out stuff to each of them but mostly to M-L. There were a few small things for starters, including a school bus model made in France by Majorette. The bus was a model of a German bus made in the 70s & 80s, thus in the time of RB Gen1. As she lives less than a five minute walk from school, it was an odd present but I painted it in the colors of our community (yellow & green) using no less than 14 different colors of paint and about five hours of work. There was also a standard one so she could see the difference between what I started with and the finished item.

After the small stuff was given out, it was time for some big stuff. I'm helping to get them a basic RB collection with one of each color kid and other major figure plus various editions of RB. She got two MIB sprites, a large US RB, Red and Indi plus the huge Gen3 cuddle pillow. Then came the moon wall hanging. Finally we got to the big surprises.There was an large "MIB" Dress Up doll made by Jazzycreations wearing a very special outfit that I designed. That was followed with the same doll loose and with a lot of extra clothes. Then I handed M-L a wrapped present and told her to open it very carefully. When the paper came off there were two wrapped small MIB RB dolls, the Europe version for mom (the same version she had 25 years ago) and a France-only doll for M-L. Then one more double wrapped gift, a pair of boxed Starlights as I knew both of them loved that horse.

Now we had to get everything to their place. I got most of the dolls into a huge carton and put that on a luggage trolley. The bagged snacks, sweets, drinks and cat food were carried downstairs, put in the car and driven to their door. Shirley wheeled the dolls on the cart as they weren't going in the car. We got everything inside and chatted until M-L's bedtime arrived, at which point I said good night and returned home.

OK, that was a lot of work and time to set that up, but it was really worth the effort. I really like sharing RB/Blondine/Azurine/RR or whatever you want to call her with other people, especially those that also know who she is and already enjoy her.

It just goes to show that after 25 years, the special magic of the original RB dolls and toys is still working. They should have never stopped making them.

[WishBear2001]

Don't worry about delay, I still haven't sent my aunt and cousins their presents yet.
That late present giving still sounded fun though.