My daughter got into this a little…I told her flat out we couldn’t afford a special made doll, so she picked BlahBlah, whoever it was.
Hello, eBay. I saved almost $60 a got the brand new doll in package, and returned for accessories, like Coconut, the white dog (retch)… They also have a lot of people who handmake nice clothing for the dolls, and I assume etsy would as well.
And the best thing I found for my daughter’s American Girl jones?
“No”
You know what’s weird? I think I was in my early teens when the books first came out, and I remember I wanted my folks to buy me a couple but never asked them because I thought I was really too old. Plus even back then, it was expensive. So I tried to put it out of my mind.
Until about five years ago, I began borrowing the books from the library to read. I had never stopped thinking about those historical girl story books.
But even that wasn’t enough. When the mysteries started coming out, I started actually buying those.
And now, I’m buying the Story Collections that I’ve already read from the library.
And I still think the books are overpriced! Plus I’m forty-six!!
I feel like Waylon Smithers and his Malibu Stacies!
There is definitely some form of mind control going on here! They’re after the little girls!! They won’t stop until they have you!! Run!! RUN!! WARN THE OTHERS!!!
My daughter is almost 5, and I am dreading the day she discovers these things. I have a niece who was really into it…one time when I was visiting she showed me the little bank the company sent her so she could save her money to buy more stuff from them. :rolleyes:
I dink around sometimes on a message board that’s mostly made up of your middle-age mom types like myself, a lot of them from smaller towns, and you can’t imagine how many of them go on family trips here to Chicago specifically to visit the American Girl store.
I had an American Girl doll growing up. I think I was like your daugher and begged and begged and begged and begged and begged… but it was a Christmas present (so I had the pre-Christmas on my best behavior going for me ;)).
I got Samantha (though it looks like the rat bastards don’t have her full-sized anymore! :(). I agonized for daaaays over if I wanted her, Felicity or Molly.
Honestly, you have a great chance of it lasting a really long time, at least. I see NOW that the prices are exhorbitant, but I had a lot of fun with mine. I had the sets of books for (the then all) 4 of the girls (back then, Pace [K-mart’s Sam’s Club/Costco] were great for getting those overpriced books at a decent-ish price) and found them really interesting. They were below my reading level but the end of the books always have some historical context and I remember learning a lot of neat facts from those. I still remember the plots of all the stories, too.
I still have my Samantha and her outfits and (the next Christmas’ main gift for me) the brass bed she had! I had her next to my bed and I’d tuck her in at night and everything. 
So yeah, it’s a ripoff, but you at least have a chance of her getting a lot of use out of it (instead of playing with it for a couple of weeks and then forgetting about it).
Has anyone seen the bubble bath? It’s a bathtub with enormous (for a doll) plastic bubbles in odd shapes. I stared at those things for, well, a minute or two before I figured out what they were supposed to be.
Oh Christ, I just looked it up, and the books didn’t come out until 1986 and I was 23. How embarrassing, to infer I still had to ask Mommy and Daddy to buy me books. Still a true story, I thought I was too old and the books were too expensive.
And Mommy and Daddy won’t buy me books anymore. Punks.
Well, I guess Dad has an excuse being dead and all.
I’m really surprised that they came out that long ago. I never even heard of them until about a year ago. And I’ve known girls of doll-owning age the whole time. I guess my nieces just avoided the cult.
MilliCal was really into American Girl, and has a couple of the dolls. A couple of years ago, we went into New York City at Christmas time, with the American Girl store on 5th Avenue as one destination.
Line around the block. It was easier to get into any other 5th Avenue store.
They’ve opened one at the “Natick Collection” here in the Boston Area (when you aspire to a certain class, it’s no longer a “Mall”). I notice that the crafts store that used to sell AG accessories no longer advertises them.
If you have a chance, I highly recommend going into an American Girl store WITHOUT A GIRL.
I went with my girlfriend to the Chicago store, my daughter was maybe 3 and AG, was off on the distant horizon. I avoided the warship that is BittyBaby like a case of crabs, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to avoid Air Craft Carrier that is American Girl Dolls forever. It is in every little girls density.
Going in there is like EVERY FUCKING THING A LITTLE GIRL COULD WANT AND SO MUCH MORE. I was very much the tomboy, but I had my dolls and walking into that store was every dream of that a little girl could have of all things girly and dolly.
My girlfriend and I stood there, in the entry way with our mouths hanging open for a good two minutes while we goggled at EVERY thing.
Completely unhinged, I could have easily ‘bought’ into the entire doll, outfits, rooms, books and whatnot. Being a tightwad by nature, I bought just one thing, a little backpack for my daughter who carried it with her to preschool and into kindergarten.
My daughter is now into her American Girl dolls. She has three. One is the Target ripoff, which is the same size, but about $70 cheaper. One is a german made doll that I got off of Ebay that is a red head and the same size and much neater that the Target doll and I like more than the AG doll. Cost: $25 plus shipping. The last is a blonde AG doll. She loves them all, but the AG is the cherry on the top of the cake. It puts her on an equal playing feild with the other girls and she knows not to diss anyone who has a knock off doll.
My husband was in Chicago in December and I called him with the instruction to buy the blonde doll for our daughter’s Xmas present. He poo poohed about the price. I told him that I was just going to order it anyways and since he was there he would be saving S&H. ( We do one big present for each kid, about $100 each. He has never bought the presents, thought about the presents or shopped for the presents. I am VERY conservative.)
With his balls firmly cut off, he parked in the 15 minute parking out front and did as I told him. Run in and a saleslady will intercept you, the man in a Girly World. You are going to stick out like I do when I run your 10billionth errands to the hardware store and the clerk intercepts me before I get lost in the World of Screws and Nuts. Tell her what you need and she will get it for you.
Everything happened exactly like I told him. He was in and out in under 15 minutes and he said he has never seen such estrogen before. It scared him.
The doll cost I don’t mind.
It is the doll clothing cost that is rape.
Our daughter received her doll from Santa and she was SO EXCITED and wouldn’t put her doll down for the rest of day. My son’s testicles shrank considerably when he realized he couldn’t borrow,play with or use this present at all.
Oh boy, reading this thread is making me ever so happy ours is a boy. 
The one area of indisputable advantage: boy toys are, in general, cool for daddy as well. He likes kites, robots, spaceships, dinosaurs, trains, cars and boats - sooo much better than shelling out a fortune on matching plastic doll accessories!
I think one of the reasons for lack of knowledge about these dolls is that they (IIRC) were only sold through mail order for a while, and even now there are only a handful of stores open - Wikipedia seems to have their number at 6 for the entire US. The first was in Chicago, and as I take the commuter train to work, ending up at Union Station downtown, I see many families going through the train station with the instantly-recognizable big shopping bags from American Girl.
One day I was at O’Hare, in one of those airport “convenience stores”, and was in line behind a woman with a small girl. The woman was really disorganized and after apologizing, asked me what time it was. As I tilted my head down to look at my wristwatch, I saw her “carryon” - a big AG bag with a doll and stuff in it, as well as a Build-a-Bear box. All I could think was, that poor woman… :eek: Dealing with both of those stores would drive me to drink.
Oh, man. You just gave me a flashback to the time I had to go into a scrapbooking store for a gift. It was about ten years ago, and I don’t think my sperm count has fully recovered yet.
But they can perform the vasectomy with an impressive variety of pinking shears…
I … don’t mean to sound stupid or out of it. But why are parents unable to tell their kids “no, I’m sorry honey, but this is just too expensive”? My niece, now 13, has one American Doll bought for her by her grandparents back when she was nine or ten, but other than that, her parents tell her the truth about what’s realistic for their budget and that’s pretty much that. They may all save together and plan for things, like they all agree to save $10 a week in some way (e.g. skipping a movie or having leftovers more often) and then after a few months they’ll buy ____ for her. The niece is, fortunately (or perhaps due to my sister’s amazingly respectful treatment of her) a compassionate, observant and reasonable kid, and she’s not prone to hissy fits because she doesn’t get ridiculously expensive toys.
I’m not saying one should never indulge a kid, and again, if it’s something you can afford and you don’t have any major objections to spending $200 on a doll, then go for it. My sister and her husband bought my niece an iPod, so it’s not like they never spend the big bucks on their kid. But if you think something is a ripoff and it’s not in your budget, just be honest with her. Or figure out a saving plan and work it out together.
That said, it doesn’t sound like this is something Diogenes can’t afford, it seems like he just thinks it’s stupid. So he forks out the bucks and rolls his eyes. Sounds reasonable to me. But if you do feel strongly about this, Dio, then I’d stop at one doll and be forthright with your daughter. It may cause some discomfort but if she’s a thoughtful little girl she’ll understand and you’ll all be better off in the long run.
Believe me, we’re stopping at one. We don’t typically give in to requests for expensive toys, but this is something she was both extremely persistent about, and willing to work consistently over a period of time to earn. She wants to go to the store at Mall of America now (which I didn’t know existed until yesterday), but she’s going to save her own allowance to do it.
She has suggested that maybe we should get a doll for our 3-year-old, which, of course, the 9-year-old would “help” her play with, but as far as I’m concerned, the 3-year-old can settle for one of the Target fakes if she really wants a doll of her own (not that the toddler has really shown much interest in doll play yet. She’s more into stuff that makes noise).
I think my wife might have to take her on the MOA trip. I’m emasculated enough in this family as it is.
Oh boy. My parents thought that they were just getting me some good age-appropriate historical fiction books and a nice, wholesome magazine when they got me on the American Girl train. They had no idea that soon I would be constantly begging for a doll (Molly FTW). It was the only doll I ever had or wanted, but c’mon, it’s not just a doll, it’s a person! From a book! From a different time! And also everyone else had one.
Anyway, I finally convinced them to buy me a doll, which given the financial situation my family was in at the time, was huge. I clearly remember sitting on the living room floor that Hannukah, opening that big box and being so excited. IIRC, I was the last one in my Girl Scout troop to get an AG doll. My parents did explain that we simply couldn’t afford the accessories; I was bummed about that, but accepted it and figured I could mooch off my friends when I went over to play.
Enter the most amazingly awesome grandmother ever, who found a bunch of patterns for American Girl doll clothes, pulled out her sewing machine, and went to work. Much to even my parent’s surprise, on Christmas day, she presented me with a big plastic case with easily over a dozen full outfits for my new doll. I’m not joking when I say that that holiday season still stands out in my mind as incredible.
Could also be in part because, being amazingly awesome, Grandma also took the time to write her ‘wartime memoir’ for me - fifteen pages or so about what it was like for her as a young woman during Molly’s time, which was really cool.
The father of the girl I know can easily afford bunches of dolls, but takes the attitude that one is plenty. The mother can’t afford any, but indulges the daughter. (To a sensible extent.) She reasons that everyone needs a hobby, and there are worse ones the girl could have. She occasionally reminds the father that back in the day, he’d sometimes spend the rent money on cool musical equipment.
Wow-really? Do you still have it?
(And I have to confess-I want Nellie. I wish they still had the real one-not the cheesy mini one. Why DID they discontinue her and Samantha?)
My cousin had Josefina. My great-aunt, her grandmother, is the family seamstress and made Josefina a matching First Communion dress when my cousin had her communion. (Because she didn’t get to make my cousin’s dress-cousin fell in love with a dress she saw in a store, and of course, what else can a grandmother do?)
But Josefina’s dress was almost exactly identical to her’s. It was absolutely gorgeous. I will say those dolls hold up well-my cousin played the HELL out of that doll.
Hereis what American Girl has waiting for your wife and daughter at Mall of America. It’s definitely not father friendly, but there is free access to game boy for bored brothers. I doubt any child can resist this type of marketing.
My husband’s niece has an AG doll. The niece is a bi-racial girl in a white, white world, (through the miracle of adoption) and her mom wanted her to have a good quality doll that was “brown” like her. I think she only has the one, though. And now she’s all grown up, so the doll probably just sits decoratively on a shelf.