The Sunshine Family

As a little girl, I never really liked Barbies. I think it was partly because the only Barbies I had were my mom's from the 50's. (As I mentioned earlier, the most fun I had with my barbie dolls was chucking them up onto the roof and watching them fall down.) But I did love my Sunshine Family dolls. Anybody remember those? They were kind of hippie Barbies...a mom, a dad, a grandpa, and a grandma. There was also a cat and a dog. There was also a tree house and a van and a craft store (though I didn't have either of these).

Well, today a care package arrived from my mom:



Somehow she managed to hold onto all of the family members as well as most of their clothes. I remember her making little granny dresses and peasant skirts for them. She even made a leather fringed jacket for the dad. Only the baby seems to have had a mishap with some super glue (hence the mohawk), but all the others have held up pretty well over the last three decades.

The girls were beside themselves. They couldn't believe that these were the very dolls I once loved and cared for. We played for a long time. The Sunshine Family went to Vermont and had a hunting party for the mom's 40th birthday. The went on nature walks and the grandpa got down in his funky pants to some music only we could hear.