It was the year Reagan was re-elected president, the year Cindy Lauper and Boy George ruled Top 40 music, the year I boarded an airplane for the first time, and yes, the year that whether or not I would get a Cabbage Patch Kid for Christmas seemed a life or death situation. Not since Barbie was introduced in the 50s had any doll been on nearly every child's Christmas list. With the introduction of the Cabbage Patch Kid, however, children and their parents were doing almost anything to get one of these wonder dolls in their clutches.
For countless weeks before Christmas, I begged and pleaded with anyone who would listen to my wild and desperate cries for one simple and easy-to-wrap present, a Cabbage Patch Kid. As Christmas Eve crept closer, the intensity of my pleas vaulted to immeasurable levels. My whining only intensified each time I witnessed a content child playing with her Cabbage Patch. My wide eyes would burn with envy and my heart would plunge like a steel ball thrown from the Sears Tower. I grew so despondent that I vowed to my mother I would force down pea soup for a year, even two years, if I could only have the pleasure of having my very own Cabbage Patch Kid. My mom would only shrug, look at me with blank eyes, and tell me in a very consoling tone that not every kid would be lucky enough to get a Cabbage Patch Kid for Christmas. She might as well have thrust a dagger through my heart.
Of course, I had a wonderful support group. Many of my friends were undergoing the same frantic desperation. Adults just didn't understand that no imitation, copy-cat doll would ever take the place of a genuine Cabbage Patch. Many parents being driven to the point of insanity tried to satisfy their whining children by giving them the cheaper, easy-to-find, discount-store model, the dreaded Flower Kid. I had nightmares of waking on Christmas morning to find a Flower Kid sitting under my stocking. Then, one horrid day less than a week from Christmas, my loving, conniving sister told me something that turned my nightmares into unutterable reality. She told me our mother had tried her hardest to buy me the doll of my dreams, but unfortunately stores had a much greater demand than they could supply. Through the block long lines and herds of trampling parents, she had come up empty-handed. That was it, I would have to settle for a Flower Kid. I swallowed a lump in my throat the size of a grapefruit, and realizing I had lost the battle, choked back tears of defeat. In a very dignified, and very untruthful manner, I told my sister that I didn't care because I would rather have a Flower Kid anyway.
I tried to convince myself that I really did want a Flower Kid and was somewhat successful--momentarily. A couple days before Christmas day, my best friend called me in an excited frenzy. For traveling reasons her family had opened their presents early, and lo-and-behold, she got a Cabbage Patch Kid! I could take no more. I came completely unraveled. I quickly hung up, and in dazed confusion sat down to let the terrifying news I had just heard sink in. Then it sank--right to the pit of my stomach. Tears streamed down my flushed face and sobs choked up my throat. I knew I was truly suffering more than any other child on the planet.
I soberly went to bed Christmas Eve wondering how I could deal with my jealousy when playing with my lucky friend and her cherished doll. Morning came slowly, and with a glimmer of hope that always comes with the dawning of Christmas Day, I crept to my stocking to check out the loot Santa had brought me. Then I saw the box; that was it, it had to be! I tore open the paper and there she was, the most beautiful yellow-haired, blue-eyed Cabbage Patch kid I had ever laid eyes on--Virginia Bab. Exhilaration charged through my animated body, and I ran to my parents to thank them for the priceless gift that changed my Christmas, and my childhood, completely.
As Virginia Bab sits in my closet collecting dust, I wonder what it was about those yarn-haired, plastic-headed dolls that made so many children fall in love with them. Maybe it was just the inventor's dumb luck, or maybe it was a generation cycle that began with Barbie and will continue through the years. Whatever the case, I'm dreading the day when my own child finds a toy that, whether or not she receives it for Christmas, seems a life-or-death situation.