How I Spent My Winter Break

Our family’s Winter break looked different this year than in year’s past. We typically either travel to visit family in New Jersey or take a trip to Gatlinburg just the 4 of us. We are usually overscheduled and very rarely home. However, Kinsley’s health required that we stay close to home this year and honestly, I think it was exactly what our family needed.

We started Winter break finishing our family Hanukkah celebrations and introducing our girls to the 1996 classic ‘A Rugrats Chanukah.’ The girls loved it and have worked “A Maccababy’s gotta do what a Maccababy’s gotta do” into their everyday vernacular. We also had an overnight hospital stay for Kinsley but our village made sure that we were supported and brought some Christmas magic to the hospital for us. We spent Christmas Eve at home with our annual viewing of the Polar Express and spent Christmas day at my family’s house. The rest of our break was spent at home working on my favorite home project I’ve ever done: Constructing a dollhouse for my daughter’s American Girl dolls.

My girls have had American Girl dolls for a while but hadn’t taken to them as much as they have recently. In the days leading up to Christmas they began playing with them more and more because it was an activity they could do together, even with Kinsley not being able to physically do as much as she used to. Slowly over a few days all of their American Girl accessories made their way from their playroom and bedrooms to the living room and before I knew it the living room was being taken over by tiny accessories I was accidentally stepping on and trying to rescue from the dogs. I went online to look for storage ideas and found a video of someone making an American Girl doll house out of Ikea wardrobes. The gears started turning and after scouring Facebook marketplace I drew out schematics for what I envisioned.

Something to know about me is I love to craft and Pinterest hates to see me coming. Crafting is a really great creative outlet for me as well as a great coping tool. I especially love projects like this where my girls can get involved. We took a family trip to some thrift stores in Charlotte and found a table and chairs as well as a doll wardrobe we were able to re-finish. I also had some awesome friends and neighbors gift our girls accessories and extra dolls that their children were no longer using and wanting to pass down. Our biggest hurdle was getting the wardrobes and putting those together because they were in fact taller than me and I love my husband but that man is not handy. However, after about 4 hours and two trips to Ikea because I bought the wrong size shelves, we had our structure.  Luckily, I had a friend in the neighborhood willing to lend me a nail gun so I picked out spare wood from the Ikea “As-Is” section and attached it to the wardrobes to make a garage and terrace for the dolls. My husband vetoed my idea to make it look like the rooftop terrace from ‘The Jersey Shore’ so we made it a garden instead using fake grass I found in my garage. As someone who does a lot of volunteer work with Girl Scouts and loves to craft, you never know what you will find in my garage which is both delightful and terrifying to people who like organization. Some other things we found lying around were leftover paint for the furniture, the terrace fence, peel and stick wallpaper, beads to make a chandelier, and string lights for the terrace.

It took me 2 days to get the wallpapering done because I am a perfectionist and I also severely underestimated how many sheets I would accidentally rip. Luckily, Dollar Tree is down the road and I am nothing if not persistent when I am trying to finish a task. We also picked up candle sticks and votive holders to make lamps, placemats for rugs, picture frames, mini canvases, mini wooden accessories, and puck lights for the inner parts of the chandeliers. My girls painted artwork for the dollhouse walls with the canvases and set their dolls up for photoshoots so they could take photos of the dolls for their house. I placed magnets on the walls in each room of the dollhouse and on the back of the frames and artwork so now they can change how the house is decorated each time they play if they want. There are still some outstanding items for the house like 2 more chandeliers, a TV, and a TV stand but after 7 days of work my back and my hands need a rest.

Working on this project allowed me to step away from the craziness of the holiday season and just “be” with my family in our space and create what I hope is a core memory for my girls. Seeing their faces light up when they woke up to the finished dollhouse is something I will never forget and made the back pain 1000% worth it. Slowing down and focusing on what matters was so good for my soul and helped me feel refreshed and ready to go into 2026 continuing to fight to make our community a better place for all.

The Finished Product!