Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter

The Dollhouse

When I was a little girl, I loved my dollhouse, which was really a small bookcase my mother had bought at a second-hand store. She said it made a perfect New York City brownstone, which is to say tall and narrow, with two rooms per floor. I had a book, There’s a Decorator in your Dollhouse, filled with ideas for making miniature furniture and accessories (my favorite was the chandelier made out of the measuring cup from a bottle of Robitussin and glitter), but at the end of the day, I much preferred to buy furniture.

The Miles Kimball catalog was always laying around our house, and one of the things they featured in those days were pages and pages of wonderful dollhouse furniture. I wanted it all. I’d spend hours looking at the cunning little lamps, the four-poster bed, the sewing table with the tiny black sewing machine, the red velvet easy chair.

My mother, always clever, instituted a policy where I could choose a few pieces for my birthday and a few for Christmas. She gave me a budget, maybe $10 for my birthday and $15 for Christmas, something like that. As a result, I spent hours doing math, which is funny, because I struggled with math and hated it. But when I was trying to maximize my $15 of dollhouse furniture, suddenly I was willing to wrestle with $2.99 (lamps) plus $7.99 (marble-topped Victorian dresser). I even had to calculate the tax and shipping. My mother was hardcore.

I’ve always thought this was a stroke of genius on my mother’s part—she got me to do math in order to get what I wanted, as well as giving me a limit. But recently I’ve realized that I learned even more from this policy. Of course, there were the life skills—math, budgeting—but also prioritizing (get the bed before the side chair, because those dolls need a place to sleep!) and the pleasure of savoring.  Sometimes savoring the choices and the possibilities, and weighing your options, is the best part of buying something new.

I often think that people shop because we are biologically programmed to hunt, to gather, to acquire, and that once we have the thing, we lose interest and move onto the next thing. So why the rush? Don’t hop on Amazon. Slow down. This year, for my birthday, I’ve asked for nesting colanders (my old enamel ones are peeling and seem unsafe). I can’t even bear to tell you how much time I’ve spent looking at colanders, but it’s been kind of fun, and though my husband is going to have to go to several websites to get exactly the ones I want, in the colors and sizes I want, I’ll end up with nontoxic, made-in-the-USA, not-bought-on-Amazon colanders.

This holiday season, take my mother’s lesson: Give yourself a budget, slow down, and savor the shopping. Don’t rush. Don’t default to the easy choice. Don’t blow the budget and buy everything. Contemplate, explore, weigh your options, because, honestly, that moment when everything is a possibility is the sweetest part.