Santa Claus Meets Barbie(Martha Huett) "Christmas would not be Christmas without dolls," said the most famous doll in the whole wide world and in all the universe.

It was a mouse-quiet Christmas Eve. Not a creature was stirring in Barbie's house, except for two self-determined living dolls.

Barbie and one of her younger sisters, Skipper, stood in front of a pink stove stirring hot cocoa in a pink pot. Barbie turned to reach into a pink cupboard for two pink mugs as Skipper carried the cocoa over to Barbie's kitchen table which was, of course, in Barbie's favorite color, pink.

"When I got that Zoom call from Mrs. Claus, I practically squealed in wonder and joy!"

Skipper had been within ear shot of that call from the North Pole last night and was warmed by her older sister's cheery delight in talking to Mrs. Claus about Santa's proposition. "And you said yes right away, didn't you, Barbie?" Skipper asked, wanting to hear again about the most remarkable Christmas plan to ever come to a Barbieland resident.

"Oh, for the love of honey, I certainly did, Skipper!" Barbie answered, squeezing a stream of her favorite food out of a bear-shaped container into her cup to sweeten the hot cocoa to Barbie standards.

"I mean, I've never even met Santa Claus!" Barbie thrilled. Just thinking about it gave Barbie goosebumps. In a good way.

Mrs. Claus had contacted Barbie in an emergency call on Christmas Eve's eve to ask for help in a most dire situation: Santa Claus was running behind schedule with only two days to go before Christmas!

"He needs me to help him pick out and deliver dolls to all the good little girls and boys around the world," Barbie enthused with her girl-power confidence.

"But, now it's Christmas Eve and you've been up all day. You must be tired. How will you stay awake and zip around the planet all night long and in all sorts of weather?" Skipper, ever the rational sibling of Barbie's three doll sisters, asked.

"Magic, Skipper. The kind that comes with Santa Claus. Christmas magic!"

But, sure as snow, Barbie was soon sound asleep later that Christmas Eve night. With visions of pink peppermints dancing in her blond head, she missed the tippy-tap of tiny reindeer hooves sounding from the pretty and pink rooftop of Barbie's house in the lovely community of Barbieland. She snored softly (please do not reveal that little detail to just anyone) and slept on.

Meanwhile, Santa Claus had swooshed down Barbie's chimney to a soft landing and was contentedly eating the honey scones and sipping the hot honey cider that Barbie had put out for him. Taffy, Barbie's pink-collared dog, sat loyally at the big guy's shining, booted feet, peering adoringly up at him and at the scones he was eating. Even the bits of the cookie sprinkled onto Santa's snowy white beard looked pretty tasty to Taffy. Blissa, on the other hand, snuggled contentedly on Santa's roomy lap and was engaged in that activity exclusive to cats that, until now, had been reserved only for Barbie. Blissa, Barbie's blue-eyed snowball of a cat, was purring for Santa Claus.

In fact, Blissa purred so hard that the reverberations only cat lovers can feel drifted into Barbie's upstairs bedroom and gently brought her awake. Barbie blinked.

"Blissa?" Barbie called out in a whisper.

No sound. No purring cat was pressed against her.

"But...but...how can that be? Blissa only purrs for me," she asked the empty room. In a twinkle, Barbie remembered.

She cried out loudly, excitedly, "Santa!"

"Ho Ho Ho! Down here, my dear."

***

Santa Claus and Barbie, laughing and full of holiday cheer, lifted off her rooftop in Barbieland that Christmas Eve. Santa was relieved for Barbie's help, and Barbie could hardly wait to meet Mrs. Claus and the elves.

On their North Pole flight to gather and load gifts for the Christmas delivery, Santa told Barbie how Mrs. Claus had played with Barbies when she was little, and now collects them. "She especially loves the Shonda Rhimes Barbie, the Zendaya Barbie, the Tina Turner Barbie and the Ida B. Wells Barbie because those dolls look the most like her," Santa said.

Barbie, ever the critical-thinking intellectual doll, recited a phrase meant to show the importance of role models in a child's life, "'If you can't see it, you can't be it.' Right, Santa?"

"Ho Ho Ho! Right on!"

Banking at the geographic coordinates of 90⁰ N, 135⁰ W, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer led his team of flying reindeer across the starry night and descended onto a snowy yard in front of a cute gingerbread house and a workshop bustling with elves. Bursting out of the home's front door came a welcoming and ever-so-huggable Mrs. Claus, whose smile could melt milk chocolate. "Oh my goodness!" she cried.
"Barbie, you darling girl. You're here!"

Barbie jumped from Santa's sleigh into Mrs. Claus's arms and the two embraced in a swaying hug.

"I've always wanted to meet you!" Barbie and Mrs. Claus exclaimed at the same time. They laughed.

"Ho Ho Ho!" Santa knew how much his wife loved meeting the special helpers he brought over every Christmas. She even had an autograph book with hundreds of collected signatures. From Abe Lincoln to Mother Theresa to Lil Nas X, Mrs. Claus welcomed and loved them all. It was just her style.

"Come on out to the workshop after you and Mrs. Claus have had time to visit. I could sure use your help with the dolls, Barbie!" Santa said hurriedly and rushed across the snow to join the elves in Santa's workshop.

Moments later, Barbie was sitting comfortably in the cozy little North Pole house, when Mrs. Claus placed a plate of dainty honey tartlets in front of her.

"Oh! I love honey," Barbie declared. "It's my favorite food."

"That, I know, Barbie. And I was so very happy to make them just for you. In fact, eat the whole plate of them, if you wish. I put together a box of them to take back to your sisters along with my very own recipe."

"Gee, thanks, Mrs. Claus," Barbie said, admiring the sweet and pretty delicacies in front of her. And at Mrs. Claus's invitation, the honey-bear in Barbie emerged and she scarfed down the tartlets before you could say "jingle bells".

For the rest of her quick visit, Barbie and Mrs. Claus laughed and chatted about their favorite subjects: science, 3D-printed fashion, justice, music, technology and time-travel. Barbie told Mrs. Claus about traveling from Barbieland to the Real World, and Mrs. Claus told Barbie about her use of Dalle-2 to create images for her own Christmas cards. They could have talked through the night, but Barbie was on a Christmas mission and didn't want to let Santa (or good little girls and boys around the world) down.

"Before you go, hon, could you sign my autograph book? Let's see, hmm. It's in alphabetical order by first names," Mrs. Claus said as she thumbed through the signatures of earlier celebrated Christmas guests to her North Pole home. "Ah! Here's the right spot. Sign your autograph right there."

Barbie picked up a pink pen that Mrs. Claus had thoughtfully provided and autographed the book between the signatures of Audrey Hepburn and Beyoncé.

***

Santa Claus and Barbie flew south-by-southwest across the Christmas Eve sky in a sleigh laden with carefully selected dolls and other toys. Earlier, energized by a plate of Mrs. Claus's dainty honey tartlets and infused by Christmas magic, Barbie had answered the Christmas doll wishes of every single good little girl and boy as she worked alongside Santa and his elves in their workshop. And now, with anticipation growing by the second, Barbie looked down from Santa's sleigh, admiring the lights of Guadalajara, Mexico and said, "Santa, I picked out the most perfect doll for Rosalinda. She's only seven and wants to be an astronaut more than anything. Rosie's going to love her new doll!"

Santa Claus, or Papá Noel as he was affectionately called in Mexico, jumped spryly from his sleigh, piled gifts into his Santa bag... and marched right through the front door of Rosie's home!

Startled, Barbie said from behind him, "Shhhh! You're going to wake everybody up."

"It's no biggie, Barbie. Really. There's no one here. It's Noche Buena and that means everyone, even the kids, are at their midnight mass. They won't be back till the wee hours of the morning."

Santa Claus and Barbie placed the toys among the lilies and fragrant evergreens that are used to adorn Mexican homes during Christmas. Barbie talked excitedly about Rosie's doll.

"There was once another little girl who wanted to be an astronaut. She would even make her dolls float around like astronauts. She worked and studied really hard and while she was still in her 20s she became the first Mexican-born woman to go into space. And, she now has a Barbie doll modeled after her that comes dressed in a blue space suit.

"Ah, yes! Katya Echazarreta," Santa said, rolling his R's like a native Spanish speaker. In fact, Santa Claus was a true polyglot; he could fluently speak every language on Earth. Part of the job.

Anyway, Barbie was absolutely correct when she said Katya (or Kat, as she is known as co-host on one of Mrs. Claus's favorite girl-empowerment TV shows, Mission Unstoppable) had worked hard. When she was just 7, her family had to move to the States to get advanced medical care for her older sister. Katya was bullied and struggled to learn English in school, but she persevered.

By the time Katya was 12, she signed up for online astronomy classes under her mom's name. After she graduated from UCLA with a degree in electrical engineering, Katya Echazarreta landed a full-time job in NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She was 26 when she was selected as a citizen astronaut and was flown into space.

Katya, an activist for growing the Mexican aerospace industry, founded the Fundación Espaciál, or Space Foundation, in Mexico City, to encourage and support women and girls in space engineering and exploration.

"I have always believed that it is not enough to reach your goals if you do not help bring others up with you. I started working diligently towards helping not only students in the United States who have big aspirations such as I did, but also students and women in Mexico who hear the same words I used to hear all too often, “it’s not for you.” - Katya Echazarreta, astronaut

Santa Claus and Barbie delivered gifts throughout Mexico, Central and South America and headed across the Atlantic, finally descending toward London, England. A little boy named Trevor fought valiantly to stay awake to see Santa come down the chimney, but lost the battle moments before Rudolph's and his team's hooves touched down on the rooftop.

All Trevor wanted for Christmas was a Dr. Jane Goodall Barbie doll. When he was only four-years-old, Trevor had taken a real shine to monkeys and apes of all kinds. Chimpanzees, capuchins, orangutans, macaques, gorillas, bonobos, gibbons. We could go on, but at age five, Trevor was telling his mom the difference between monkeys and apes and that because people don't have tails, we're apes, not monkeys. At his current age of six, Trevor tells
everyone he meets, "I'm going to be a primatologist when I grow up, just like my hero, Jane Goodall!"

Santa Claus and Barbie carefully arranged gifts under Trevor's Christmas tree and whispered about the Dr. Jane Goodall Barbie doll. "She's dressed in a safari outfit and helmet and look, she comes with the cutest accessories - a chimp, binoculars, and a little field notebook," Barbie said.

Santa answered, "Trevor is going to have so much fun playing with her. He can pretend they're in Tanzania climbing trees and studying chimps, just like Dr. Goodall did when she moved there from her home in England."

"Yeah! And they can pretend-travel to all those countries where she established her non-profit wildlife and environment conservation organizations, the Jane Goodall Institute. There's like 27 of them in different countries, I think," Barbie added.

"Mrs. Claus told me about an interview she read in the Humane Society of America's 'All Animals' magazine that Dr. Goodall has a youth conservation program called Roots and Shoots, and that one is in over 100 countries around the world," Santa said, adding, "In the interview, Dr. Goodall was asked if she hoped to become an icon, and she said...

"Of course not! I was a shy little girl, born with a love of animals. I was 10 when I decided I would go to Africa, live with wild animals and write books about them. Everyone laughed at me—Africa was little known and far away, we had very little money, and I was “just a girl” and girls did not do that sort of thing. All but my mother, who said I would have to work hard, take advantage of every opportunity, and then, if I did not give up, hopefully I’d find a way. Which I did!" - Dr. Jane Goodall, primatologist

After a glass of sherry and slice of mince pie that Trevor's mom had set out for Santa Claus, the reindeer and sleigh lifted into a starry Christmas Eve night over England delivering presents to all good little girls and boys with the speed and efficiency that can only come with Christmas magic.

Heading south into Italy, Santa told Barbie that in Italy during Christmas the whole country smelled like an Italian restaurant. Stuffed manicotti, ravioli and other delectable baked pasta dishes were a tradition and happy families gather to enjoy a huge Christmas Day meal and to sing songs. "I once took home to Mrs. Claus a whole pan of baked lasagna!", Santa revealed.

Santa Claus, aka Babbo Natale, loved coming to Venice, Italy, the City of Canals, where the beautiful bridges and atmospheric streets charmed him every single year, as well as the fragrant smells coming from the kitchens of Italian homes. In spite of all the Santa treats he'd already consumed, his stomach growled above the rushing wind as they descended toward Venice. Barbie glanced over at Santa and said amusedly, "Maybe somebody will leave you manicotti or something."

"Ho Ho Ho! Possibly, but for sure I'll get plenty of Vitamin C from all those clementines that are left out for me. And the reindeer will get hay. They'll like that," Santa said.

"Clementines?" Barbie asked.

"They're like a really sweet tangerine with orange and red skin. Delicious!" Santa answered.

Within the city of Venice lived a little girl named Gianna, age 6, who had loved Babbo Natale her whole life. She told him so in a sweet, but politely demanding letter asking for a Bebe Vio Barbie doll. You see, young Gianna had been a good little girl all year long; she brushed her teeth every day, studied her letters and math as directed, didn't say a single mean thing to her older (but bratty) brother, and did her upper body strength training exercises every single day. Gianna was determined to become a world-class fencer, in spite of being in a wheelchair, just like her hero, Bebe Vio from Venice.

Where Gianna had been unable to walk since birth, Bebe, a gold medal-winning Paralympian in fencing, had contracted meningitis when she was only 11 and subsequently lost both her arms and legs. After prosthetic surgeries and several years of grueling rehabilitation, Bebe Vio continued training in the sport of fencing that she had taken up when she was only four years old. She won her medals competing in a wheelchair.

Gianna loved that the Bebe Vio Barbie doll, dressed in a fencing suit, came with a fencing mask and her own little wheelchair. All she wanted for Christmas was that doll and that's why Gianna had tried so hard to be good. But truth be told, she also found it got a little easier with every try. And she had Bebe Vio to look up to, not only because of her athleticism in a wheelchair, but because of the organization founded from her experience. Art4Sports is a non-profit dedicated to helping amputee children and young athletes with limb prostheses to learn the beauty and joy of life and to integrate into society.

"I don’t understand why I should be angry when I have survived the disease, I am enjoying life to the fullest, so I have a lot of fun. I also have days in which I wake up on the wrong foot, but I think it’s us who decide how to seize the day. If you are not the one who decides you want to live well, you will never do it. It’s not worth being sad: it’s great to come across someone with a smile on the face.” - Bebe Vio, Paralympian

Lifting into the Christmas Eve night over Italy, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and his team flew Santa Claus and Barbie all over Europe, to Africa and Asia, from Australia to Africa to Antarctica. It was exhilarating for Barbie who was becoming used to her long blond hair blowing in the sleigh's wind. "Next time, though, I'll bring a scrunchie," she thought, hoping there would be a next time to fly the night skies with Santa.

***

Santa Claus and Barbie headed toward the North American continent where a good little girl named Shondra slept peacefully with dreams of sugar plums dancing in her head. Before she drifted off, Shondra had wished her daddy could be with her and her mom to read bedtime stories. She liked it best when they both took turns reading to her, but he had to work the night shift on Christmas Eve. So, Shondra's mom had taken out one of their favorite books about one of her many heroes, Ida B. Wells.

It's rather astonishing how much children know and how easily they learn from their parents and other adults. Shondra pretty much knew from the get-go that her parents were reading her books that had been banned from the library at her school in Tampa, Florida. An astute observer, like most kids, even at the age of 7 , she watched and listened in on adult talk about how only certain things can be taught to girls and boys. But also, like most kids, Shondra trusted her parents to love her and keep her safe, so she enjoyed the bedtime reading sessions with impunity.

Shondra loved Ida B. Wells stories because even though Ida was born a slave and was supposed to be quiet and cooperative, she grew to be a newspaper reporter, a teacher, a civil rights lecturer, and a writer. Not to mention, a suffragette (and yes, seven-year-old girls can learn and understand that word...try it out!).

Either way, Shondra wanted the Ida B. Wells Barbie doll the minute she saw a picture of her. She looked just like her grandma, even with the same hair. And that grandma would be her mom's mom because her daddy is White and Shondra hadn't seen a doll with the same hair as her dad's mom yet. Shondra liked Ida's old-fashioned dress and parasol accessory too.

Santa Claus and Barbie moved softly within Shondra's living room with its cheerfully decorated Christmas tree and stockings. Pepper, Shondra's pug puppy, followed them around the living room with his little puggy grunts and snorts. Santa placed the Ida B. Wells Barbie doll and other gifts under the tree and sauntered over to a side-table with a sizable display of Christmas treats. Behold - cookies, brownies, cupcakes, fudge, and coincidentally, dainty honey tartlets. Santa and Barbie, with Pepper on her lap, sat comfortably and munched down every bite, draining the pitcher of milk.

Earlier that Christmas Eve night, after being allowed her own Christmas treat of cookies and milk, Shondra had asked, "Mom, if Santa Claus brings me an Ida B. Wells Barbie doll, can I take her to school when we have Show And Tell day?" Her mom answered that when she needs to make a decision how to right a wrong, she remembers the words of Shondra's hero...

"The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them." - Ida B. Wells, Suffragette

"Santa, did we get everybody?" Barbie sleepily asked Santa Claus after they had delivered Christmas gifts world-wide.

"Ho Ho Ho!" Santa laughed. "Everybody who has come along with me on this sleigh ride has asked that exact same question. It's very sweet."

"They have?"

"Yes. And yes, Barbie, we got every single boy and girl their presents."

Suddenly, the wind shifted as they began their descent to Barbieland, and several strands of her blond hair flew in front of Barbie's face. She closed her eyes just for a blink.

The next thing Barbie knew, she was waking up in her dollhouse next to Blissa the cat on a bright and sunny Christmas Day.

"Wow, what a dream! Wait...that was really real," she said out loud, recalling Mrs. Claus's Zoom call, her gingerbread house and the global sleigh ride with Santa Claus. Barbie hurried down the stairs and sure enough, sitting there next to her tree, was a pink, personalized state-of-the-art 3D printer so she could code and print out all her fashionable outfits. Barbie cried out happily and jumped with joy.

Above her from the rooftop came a faint sound of jingling bells. And then, on that beautiful Christmas morn in Barbieland, all were awakened to Santa's booming voice, blessing them with the merriest greeting of them all, as he headed home to Mrs. Claus...

"Ho Ho Ho!"

"Merry Christmas to all!"


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