My husband and I don’t have kids (except for our bouncing baby Labrador), so our nieces and nephews are extremely important to us. Every few Christmases, we leave the comforts of home (skiing at Purg! Christmas cheer in the hot tub!) and make a pilgrimage back east to spend the holidays with Bryan’s family. Our six nieces and nephews – the youngest is eight, the oldest is 13 – ensure that the visit is boisterously fun and beyond exhausting.

 

These holiday excursions fill us with love for our family, and also with gratitude for living in Durango – something that was driven home a few Christmases ago when I joined the girls for a trip to the American Girl Doll Bistro, a restaurant in an American Girl store in Natick, Mass.

 

For the uninitiated, the American Girl Doll franchise is a stroke of marketing genius. There are a variety of $100 dolls to represent varying demographics and time periods in America, and each doll comes with a book telling her personal story. For example, blond hippie “Julie” is a San Francisco girl in the 1970s who is sad to leave her best friend (and American Girl doll) Ivy Ling (yep, of Asian descent) to go to a new school.  Of course, Julie, Ivy and the other dolls have all kinds of clothes you can buy and accessories ranging from kitchen sets to itty bitty ice skates that can all be purchased at additional cost.

 

Many of these personal “stories” are showcased in glass boxes, dioramas of American consumerism. Parents can also spring for human-sized dresses for their daughters that match their doll’s outfit … and of course, mull over potential purchases while dining in the theme restaurant.

 

Each year, my mother-in-law treats her two daughters and three granddaughters to lunch there, and on our latest visit, I was invited to join them. The girls were shocked that I’d never heard of an American Girl doll, so they loaned me a couple of their spares to take to the restaurant. When we got to the hostess stand, my oldest niece was reprimanding me for not removing the dolls’ coats when the hostess asked how many were in our party.

 

“Four adults and three children,” I told her.

 

She replied with a straight face: “And how many dolls?”

 

Apparently, each doll gets its own little high chair that hooks onto the table so that they can sit next to us and read their little doll menus.
The girls took great care deciding what their dolls would eat, then gobbled down the muffins that were brought for the dolls regardless of their “order.” There’s no kid’s menu at the restaurant – which must be the worst restaurant in which to work in the entire United States – there’s a flat $16.50 per lunch charge (plus tax and tip). I gazed in bewilderment at the pink walls with the brand’s trademark star hung throughout the restaurant before seeing that star again in the shape of a crouton floating in the soup, and a star-shaped slice of cheese on top of my niece’s mac and cheese. Let no branding opportunity go unused!

 

Our group joined the waitstaff in singing “Happy Birthday” to a little girl at the table next to us. She blew out the candle on the plate of whipped cream. “Happy birthday!” we said to her afterward. “It’s not my birthday – it’s my doll’s,” she corrected. Of course it was.

 

After lunch, we mercifully bypassed the American Girl Doll Hair Salon to join the hordes of shoppers in the retail store downstairs. It is a truth universally acknowledged that after a meal at the restaurant, each mother will buy each daughter a new $30 outfit for her doll. This is the moment for a beloved auntie with no children and therefore expendable income to shine. I sidled up to each of my nieces while they worried over which one outfit to buy, and said, “I think I should also buy your doll an outfit, don’t you?” Each of my adorable nieces rewarded me with a giant grin and a heartfelt hug. Then asked, “Shoes too?” My answer warranted additional hugs. U.S.A.!

 

Once they made their selections, I stood in a long line that snaked through the store for about 20 minutes. Watching the mesmerized children racing in and out of seemingly endless window boxes and racks, I got a little woozy and started wondering what seasonal beers they were serving at Carvers. When I reached a cashier, I handed over the loot and said, “This is Auntie Jenny’s first time at the American Girl Doll store. I’m going to be drinking bourbon later.” A frazzled man – possibly the only male in the establishment – who was paying at the register next to me tapped my arm, leaned in and agreed, “This place is crazy.”

 

While one of the moms waited 45 minutes for the valet, the rest of us wandered around taking wacky pictures next to each doll display. When we got to the one with a South American Girl Doll, I tried to insert a little culture into the outing by telling the girls about backpacking in South America. I pointed to the doll’s llama and said, “They’re really cute but they spit!” Later, they surprised me in the car by giving me the American Girl Doll llama, which we named Pepe the Loco Llama. They played with their dolls and Pepe while I made good on my promise to consume three fingers of bourbon as soon as we got back to the house.

 

This year we won’t be going back east – we’re staying here in Durango. While I’ll miss seeing my in-laws and even making the girls light up at the American Girl Doll store, I’ll also be feeling grateful to celebrate in our peaceful, noncommercial town where dogs are given preferential treatment over dolls. And I doubt the girls will miss me too much – we sent them each a gift certificate for the American Girl Doll store.

 

– Jen Reeder