sharing rituals with our American girls
Last week I made the pilgrimage to Chicago’s American Girl Place with three real life American girls, another American mom and her very hip mother, and, of course, three American Girl dolls.
A quick caveat: I am very aware these dolls are expensive and some alternative brands will suffice. I also understand there is plenty of consumerism, gender bias, and marketing manipulation involved. Nevertheless, we planned ahead, fell in willingly, had a blast, and made some beautiful memories.
The highlight of the trip was allowing the girls to get their ears pierced, and –get this– piercing the dolls’ ears too.
My daughter had been begging to pierce her ears for months, but I hesitated. My husband and I wanted our daughter to be old enough to take good care of her ears and her earrings. I also wanted to make this strange ritual special. I felt this need to protect her innocent earlobes from some cheap tryst in the back of a store that she might not remember tomorrow.
So doing it with longtime family friends, with the added novelty of the dolls sharing the pain, seemed to qualify.
We sprang the surprise idea on the girls, who were thrilled until we got to the store where ears 
get pierced. Another girl had been stopping there for two days mustering up courage to do the deed. One by one they sat on the throne and braved the puncturing with few tears, save one, who found her courage later in an ice cream sundae. Finally, our girls smiled big, stood about two inches taller and celebrated their triumph.
The next day we headed to the American Girl salon to make sure the dolls weren’t left out of the fun. We handed them over to the beauty technicians, who whisked them behind closed doors to drill holes in their lobeless heads lovingly pierce their little ears too. Amazingly, we had no tears this time.
Freshly adorned with sparkly little studs, we went on our merry way to empty our wallets partake of the magic that is Chicago and American Girl. More on that later.
Question for you: How do you make little rituals something to remember?
Interesting that you should write on this topic of remembering rituals and events. They aren’t necessarily little, but it so happens that I am going to a half-day workshop on marking milestones with your family. As the brochure said, “Life’s milestones…How might we mark these places along the faith journey both in the sanctuary and in the home.” It’s on Saturday, August 15th, from 9:30 to 1:30 at Geneva Presbyterian Church in Canton. There is a $9 fee but it includes lunch and materials. Contact Donna Gray, Director of Church Education at dgrayce at sign sbcglobal.net (You know what to do with the words “at sign!”)
Sounds really cool, Carol, thank you for passing it on!
We visited the American Girl in chicago years ago when my husband had a business trip there. It was pretty magical. I’m glad you were able to do that with a group of three little friends. Now that our princess is 14, our rituals come in the form of pedicures and girls’ nights in. When the salon near our house offers 2-for-1 pedicures, we’re there. (Happens only about twice a year.) And the nights in are wonderful times to cook together and watch a chick flick…with lots of great talk-time in between.