What's Behind Door #1? A Christmas Surprise!

Happy December 1st Everyone!

Just 24 days until Christmas!

How is everyone's Christmas planning going? I'm pretty much done with present shopping for everyone. I think I have about seven things left to get for my family, but most of those are small things that have to wait until closer to Christmas. Of course, now that I'm done so early I start finding stuff I like better that I buy. Luckily, that's not a big issue. I just shuffle around their presents and keep some things for their birthdays. Unlike present shoppng I haven't done a bit of decorating, unless you count the dolls still wearing their Christmas outfits from last year since I am a bad dolly parent.

Now that it's the official start of the Advent season and my Advent calendar I can show you the full image since our Day One Present was hiding behind a windowed door:

a close up of (sorry for the glare):

and as I start to open it:

I was surprised how difficult it was to open this. There's perforations on the door but I had to press down pretty hard to get them to tear. I understand they need that so it's harder to open in the store but if I was a child I might have needed a parent's assistance in opening it. I wonder how easy the other doors will be to open. 

Here's the door fully open 

(I know it looks pretty ragged, I tried hard to get it to open neatly. 

Good thing I'm not one to keep boxes like these). 

And here's the doll fresh out of the box. She was attached to the box at both arms, her waist, and her ankles. She also had those awful plastic tabs in her head and an elastic holding her ponytail. 

And here she is posed a little more neutral. 

Let's start with the doll. She is your standard Millie face with platinum blonde hair with a side part, light blue eyes, and bubblegum pink lips. The lips on mine are painted a little high, and one side is higher than the other. It's not super glaring and actually I think it gives her a little more personality. Not enough to keep her, I'm not a fan of the Millie face and Mattel has been using it a LOT, even in the collector line. I am pleased to see that she is free from glue in her head. Hopefully that's over and done with.

She has the pretty standard light tan skin tone. Her body is a mix of articulated and static parts. She uses the newer "original" torso, so it's a little more boxy than the belly button torso that I prefer. I tried taking her legs off and actually caused the torso to get a white stress mark at the hip. I've never had that happen before. Her torso seems to be thinner and cheaper than previous dolls. I tapped it and compared the sound to a earlier belly button body and this doll sounds more hollow. It seems thinner than even the newer Fashionista dolls. However I just buy those and pop their heads onto articulated bodies I don't spend a lot of time investigating the quality of their bodies.

 She also has the newer style arms with the indent in the upper arm to represent muscles. I don't like this, especially when there's no joint there to justify the indent. Mine also came with some not very pretty armpit gouges. This picture was taken when the doll was just removed from the box and I did not move her arms inward at all. 

So far it doesn't seem like moving her arms is causing any more of that t happen, so I'm hoping it's just an ugly cosmetic issue from when her arms were made. She does have the arms that her elbows can come out as well as her hands. Her elbow connection seem quite loose, even out of the box they have unsightly gaps that I can't seem to get to click into place. I'm glad her hands come out, they might have a future with a Made to Move body since I can't warm up to their paddle hands. Her legs are your standard high heeled leg. She has no leg articulation (which is a shame for a doll that has a bit of a sports theme). I tried swapping her legs out for articulated ones but the ball joints were too small for a Made to move leg so I put her original legs back on. She does have that line on her leg where the top part of her leg has a shiny finish and the lower part has a matte finish like all Mattel dolls have. I read online that someone theorized they had a two part mold that allowed them to swap out the the high heeled foot and the flat foot molds. It makes sense to me, I just wish it didn't leave that line. The legs just aren't as pretty to me like that. 

The doll comes wearing a really cute blue bodysuit with a sweet heard bust line and a sheer upper that goes around the neck. It closes in the back with velcro at the neck and back. I think it's really cute and one of reasons why I wanted this set.. I do think this is something I could make, but sometimes it's better when I don't have to. It has a few sewing errors here and there but nothing I can't live with. I think one side of the back is higher than the other. Here's how it looked on the doll straight out of the box:

 I tried it on the Fashionista body and the fit is pretty decent. There's some unsightly wrinkles at the crotch and it's has that same back issue but looks good from the front. I'm glad it fits since I have a lot more dolls that use the belly button body compared to the made to move body. *cough Charlotte cough*

Side note, I'm also going to share my chocolate Advent calendar from Aldi's. They usually have a few varieties and I picked this one from the ones my father brought home:

It's my favorite because of how bad it is. There's so many mixed art styles and editing errors. One of my favorites (that was there last year too) was this chunk of snow places over one of the candles.

 Also check out these terrifying vague people living in the buildings. That guy is standing right in front of the building, so either he and the first floor are huge or those people are extremely tiny compared to everyone else in the picture. 

Please look at the picture of the entire thing, there's so much to see and some of it's pretty unintentionally funny. But that's not the purpose of the calendar, it's purpose is Chocolate! I quickly found door number one and peeled it back, revealing...

A candle with feathers and two ornaments. Don't get the feathers, is that a German thing? Still tasted good. And tomorrow brings another piece! 

So stay tuned for day two of both Advent Calendars!