Worshipping at the Temple of American Girl

I never did get a chance to blog about my visit to the American Girl Place in Chicago, but since I officially disapprove of these expensive dolls, I thought I'd better not rhapsodize about how cute everything was. Instead -- and since today is Wordless Wednesday anyway -- I'll let the pictures do the talking.



When I visited in July, the outside display and front of the store was devoted to the newest American Girl doll, Rebecca Rubin.



The first floor has the Girl of the Year, Historical Line of Dolls, Bitty Baby and Bitty Twins. The Historical section has life-sized displays of furniture and objects that might have been used by girls during the time period.



They have lots of beautiful displays, all designed to make little girls beg their parents to open their wallets.



The second floor has all the Just Like Me Dolls, along with all the American Girl of Today outfits and accessories, and all the Dress Like Your Doll merchandise. These Just Like Me dolls remind me of the Children of the Corn, all staring forward like that, although I'm sure the little girls squealing over the display won't think they look lifeless and soul-sucking whatsoever. The doll in the very center is one that The Pea got for her seventh birthday. That model has since been discontinued, so I'm glad she was able to choose the doll that looks the most like her while they were still making it.



The second floor also has the Doll Hair Salon and Tea Room. In most cases, I pay less for my own haircuts than you would to style your doll's hair over here.



Last, but not least, for the second floor is the Craft section, which has what I think is one of the best bargains in the whole American Girl Place. For $10 you can customize a shirt for your doll -- you pick the color and style of shirt, you pick a shirt design, and they will heat-transfer the design onto the shirt. They even packed it for me in a little doll-sized American Girl Place shopping bag, which The Pea loves since her dolls can do their own dolly shopping with the shopping bag.



I wish I could have taken The Pea and her brothers to see the store, but I had to be content with snapping all these photos, including one of me in the store so that I could show The Pea that I actually went there.

Yup, I'm not a fan of American Girl dolls. That's my line, and I'm sticking to it. Oh, who am I kidding, I hate the fact that they're little cash-suckers but if I ever won a million bucks I'd probably get The Pea the Kit doll, Kit's Treehouse and a horse to go with it.

Click here to see the entire photo set on Flickr.