Maggie's Memos: A 2 Year Celebration...or How I Ended Up in This Stupid Frilly Dress Again...Part 2

All too soon, Thursday arrived.  There I was, standing in a crowded doll room with 7 other dolls, stuffed into an itchy plaid dress with a skirt wide enough for a human.  Well...almost. :}

At least I didn't have the undignified addition of glitter (aside from my ridiculously sparkly red shoes).  I'd come close to being forced into the sparkly Belle dress.  Which.would.have.been.horrendous.  Thankfully, I was able to unearth this plaid dress that the Hathaway sisters normally share and was also able to convince everyone that it was fancy enough for the dress-up party. 

Everyone had come right on time.  Mama had moved in just enough furniture, so there was plenty of room for all of us.  Tess had taken care of refreshments.  Soda, cupcakes, and ice cream were available for all of our guests.  (Hey, don't knock it, okay?  Health food is not usually a high priority for dolls.  And come on, if you didn't have to count calories or worry about body fat, would you really opt for that salad over the cheeseburger?)

Rachel had the misfortune of wearing the shiny blue dress that I'm usually stuck with.  Amazingly, she didn't seem to mind it.  Her sister Jenna looked like something out of one of Tess's Jane Austen books.

Emma, of course, was dressed in her Emma Woodhouse dress.  Hailey was wearing the newish white colonial dress that looked hot and uncomfortable (to me, at least).  Charlie had decided on the green dress with golden swirls, but had insisted on wearing her cowgirl boots, as usual. ;)

Hayden had also selected a Regency dress.  Honestly, it was a little scary being in the same room with that many Jane Austen dresses.  I was worried I'd gotten sucked into the pages of one of Tess or Emma's books!

Tess caught my eye and waved to me from the spot where she was serving refreshments.  I waved back.  I'm sure you won't be surprised by the fact that she had also selected "Regency attire", as she loves to call it. :{  I have to admit, that feather makes me smirk every time I see her wear it.  There are some things I will never understand, Regency fashion being one of them.

Tess came over and joined me.  "I think everyone's had something to eat now," she informed me, looking over at our guests.  "They all seem to be having a good time."

I nodded.  "Do you want to call the meeting to order, or should I?" I asked, even though I already knew what her answer would be.

She gave me an embarrassed little smile.  "You can do it."

Everyone was so busy talking that it took a while to get their attention.  After a few failed attempts, I was able to quiet everyone down.  They all turned to hear what I had to say.

"Thanks for coming, everyone," I began.  "As you know, Monday was the 2nd Blogoversary of our blog.  Tess wanted to celebrate by having this party, but we also wanted to get some ideas from all of you."

I turned to Tess.  "You're on," I whispered, grinning.

Tess cleared her throat nervously.  "We want to have a giveaway, but we're not sure what we should use for the prize.  Any ideas?"

"You guys could buy something," Charlie suggested.

I shook my head.  "We're pretty broke, so we're trying to avoid that, if possible."

"Does Mama have anything in her gift drawer that would work?" Rachel asked.

"Possibly," I mused.  "We'll have to check with her."

"I have an idea!" Emma said excitedly.  "We could each choose something from our own personal collections to donate to the giveaway.  Then, whoever won would have a little bit from each of us."

Tess beamed.  "I love that idea, Emma!"  Then she glanced around shyly at everyone else.  "But would that work for everyone?"

There were nods and generally positive comments from everyone.  

"Okay, I'll check with Mama on the gift drawer idea," I announced.  "In the meantime, please check and see what you have to donate.  We'd like to get the giveaway announced as soon as possible.  If we gave you until tomorrow to get everything to us, would that give you enough time?"

There didn't seem to be any objections.

"So, Friday it is.  We'll do a giveaway post on Saturday morning."  I gave everyone a smile.  "Thanks for your help!"

"I have another idea," Jenna announced boldly from the back of the room.

Everyone turned to see what she had to say.

"It's not about the giveaway," she clarified.  "But seeing everyone dressed up like this gave me the best idea ever!  We could form some sort of club, and have meetings where we dressed up and pretended to be fictional characters from literature."

"A club?" I asked weakly.  All I could think about was the "dressing up" part.  I had planned on ditching dresses forever after tonight!

Jenna nodded.  "There are plenty of characters to choose from.  Just think how much fun it would be!  We could discuss our favorite works of literature, or plays or movies, or whatever we wanted to!  Oh, and we could call ourselves..."  She paused a moment, scrunching up her brow in concentration.  Then a bright look came over her face.  "We could be the 'Literary Ladies Society'!"

Hayden clapped her hands.  "I love it, Jenna!  That sounds like so much fun!"  Of course, Hayden would approve.  She and Jenna had been like two peas in a pod lately.  Between Hayden's imagination and Jenna's love of the stage, they were perfect friends for each other.

Tess was getting excited now, too.  "I'm sure there's a way I could incorporate it into my 'Tea with Tess' posts I've been meaning to get back to."

"I don't know," I said, trying to sound like the voice of reason that didn't want to spoil everyone's fun but had to bring reality to the situation.  I'm not sure if I succeeded.  "Would that work with our schedules and everything?  And what if we couldn't get to our dresses in time?"

Charlie gave me a funny look.  "What schedules?  We're dolls."

Thanks for nothing, Charlie.

"And the dress problem could be solved easily enough," Emma added.  "We could keep our dresses out so we didn't have to wait for Mama to get them out for us."  She turned to Hayden, who was standing next to her.  "Just a suggestion, but in that dress, you make a perfect Catherine Morland."

Hayden looked excited.  "Oh, wonderful!  I was trying to decide on a character.  Since I have a Regency dress, a Jane Austen heroine would be perfect, and Catherine is my favorite."

And from there, I lost total control of the situation.  Everyone started talking about the "Literary Ladies Society" and how much fun it would be to dress up.  Even Rachel looked pleased.  Traitor.  

I was beginning to wish we'd never had this party.  Stupid, Maggie!  Why did you agree?!  I mean, being supportive is one thing, but wearing a dress repeatedly was NOT part of my original plan!

Well, that's all I have time for now.  We'll have our giveaway post up sometime tomorrow.  And I've heard nothing but LLS stuff since last night.  Half of them have already chosen their characters and figured out where they're going to keep their dresses, so I'm sure that very soon Tess or Emma will put up a post about it.  I'm hoping that maybe I'll get lost in the shuffle and not have to participate.  I know.  I'm delusional.

The obligatory group shot.  Meet the members of the new "Literary Ladies Society".  At least, 7 members.  I'm planning a move to Antarctica soon.