Visiting Santa (by Kaya)

 Today, all of the AG Gossip dolls were at the mall doing some Christmas shopping. After a couple of hours, we decided to take a break and go visit Santa. We all got in the end of the long line and started our wait. We played games to make the time pass more quickly. When we finally made it to the front of the line, Kit immediately volunteered to go first. Her list was surprisingly short. It was only 2 pages! Marisol was up next.When she sat on Santa's lap, she unrolled a LONG list that went all the way to the floor! "I just couldn't make up my mind!" Marisol explained. Things went more smoothly after that. For the most part, we all asked for a few things and left. Our luck ended when it was Josefina's turn. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a short list. "I would like eggs, milk, bananas, peanut butter...oh no!" Her face turned red as she realized, "This is the grocery list!" So instead, Josefina asked for one of the many items from Marisol's list. Jessica had patiently waited and was ready to be the last to go. She cheerfully sat on Santa's lap and cleared her throat. I guess she had a tickle in her throat because she started coughing. When she caught her breath, Jessica gasped. We all noticed a bright pink spot on Santa's beard. Jessica's gum had accidentally fallen out of her mouth and onto Santa's beard! "I'm so sorry!" Jessica exclaimed. An elf had to go get scissors and trim off the hair with gum in it. After that was settled, we gathered for a group photo with Santa, and continued shopping. I hope we all get what we want for Christmas! What do you want to receive for Christmas?

Happy Hanukkah! (by Marisol)

Yesterday was the last night of Hanukkah! We had a blast celebrating the eight day festival of lights. Rebecca organized all of the festivities. On the first night of Hanukkah, we each got a beautifully wrapped gift. When we opened them we each found a Menorah, which is a candle holder that holds eight candles plus one extra called the Shamus. We also got colorful candles to light! Carely put her cooking skills to use by making golden, crispy latkes (potato pancakes)! Yummy! One night, Julie put a huge glob of sour cream on her latkes. When she took a bite, she quickly spit it into a napkin. "That wasn't whipped cream!" she exclaimed. We also had a ton of dreidel games during the course of the holiday. So many that we ran out of gelt (chocolate coins)! I admit, it's hard not to snack on your gelt during the game! It's a good thing we found a bag of peanuts in Kit's messy room! My favorite part of Hanukkah has always been lighting the Menorah. This year we tried to help Molly get over her fear of burning herself with the candles. She still worries about dropping a candle and setting the house on fire, but she has improved! There is something really beautiful about 15 Menorahs all lit. Yesterday, I stared in awe at the sight of 135 flames dancing joyously together. Happy Hanukkah!

A Great Turkey Day (by Carely)

We hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We sure did! To start off, I will announce the results of our canned food drive. The winning team had both the most items and the most fans' votes. The winning team is... drum roll please... TEAM 2! Team 2 had a total of 73 items. Team 1 had a total of 68 items. so altogether we collected 141 items! When we donated our items to our local food bank, the people there were so happy. It felt good to know that we had made a difference. On the day before Thanksgiving, we went to see Molly, Kirsten, and Nicki perform in their Thanksgiving play. It told the story of the first Thanksgiving. The play was cute. After the show, Nicki complained about only having one line: "Gobble, Gobble!" But, all three of them said that they had a fun time! The next morning, everyone was up early to watch the Thanksgiving Day Parade. After that, I took control of the kitchen and started to make the meal with the help of my fellow chefs, Kaya and Kit. Boy, did we make a mess! I felt bad for myself and the rest of Team 1. The counters were covered with pots, pans, and scraps of food. I was not looking forward to cleaning the kitchen. Thanksgiving dinner was delicious! I was flattered by all the compliments my cooking received. After everyone stuffed themselves, Angela, Chrissa, Felicity, Jessica, Josefina, Julie, and I reluctantly trudged into the kitchen. Our arms felt like rubber from all the scrubbing and cleaning. When we finally finished, we were ready to reward our hard work with big slices of pumpkin pie! It didn't take long for us to clean our plates, and for Kit to devour the entire bottle of whipped cream! We have so much to be thankful for and I'm glad we took the time to realize that. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Cantastic! (by Samantha)

A few days ago, all of the AG Gossip dolls were together talking about the menu for our magnificent Thanksgiving feast, and debating the amount of vegetables we'd have. I wasn't quite as enthusiastic as my friends, for I was feeling rather glum. "What's wrong Samantha?" Josefina asked. I explained that I felt bad for the less fortunate people who didn't have as much to be thankful for. Then, Carely had an idea. "Let's have a canned food drive!" she exclaimed. Everyone agreed that it was a great idea. Jessica was the only one who had any objection. "We should make it a competition!" Once again, we all loved the idea. We divided ourselves into two teams alphabetically. Team 1 is Angela, Carely, Chrissa, Felicity, Jessica, Josefina, and Julie. Team 2 is Kaya, Kirsten, Kit, Marisol, Molly, Nicki, Rebecca, and me. The rules are simple, the team that collects the most cans and other food items will be the winners. The losing team will have to clean up the kitchen after Thanksgiving. We all know that this is a big task, that requires lots of hard work! Of course, things haven't been that simple! Members from each team are asking classmates, friends, and neighbors to donate cans to their team. News about our canned food drive is slowly spreading throughout our whole community. Some of us are taking the competition a little too seriously. One day, Kit sent Molly to spy on the other team! Another day, cans mysteriously started disappearing from our team's pile! Hopefully, everyone will start playing fair again! Even though we all may be a bit competitive, we never forget that we all are working to help others. We want more families to get good Thanksgiving meals. Hey, our contest isn't over yet! You can help increase one of the team's score by commenting "Team 1" or "Team 2" on the chat box or on this post. Be sure about the team you vote for because you can only do it once! We will announce the winning team on our next post. We hope we'll collect lots of cans and get lots of comments from you too!

Looking Back On Halloween (by Kirsten)

Kirsten here! We had an amazing Halloween at AG Gossip! The festivities started around noon, when the party committee had finished preparing for the Spooktacular Halloween Party. Everyone put on their Halloween costumes and made last-minute touches to perfect their look. Proudly, Felicity ushered us into the living room. We were all surprised at how great the room looked! Josefina and Molly had spent a long time hanging orange streamers and making posters. Nicki had set up the beautiful and delicious goodies on the snack table. Felicity hosted all of the games; like pin the mouth on the pumpkin and bobbing for apples. She even made a special Halloween play list of spooky tunes to set the mood for the party, and for playing musical chairs! The party was a blast!

Soon, it was time to go trick-or-treating. Thanks to our decorating team, our house looked magnificent! It was strung with orange lights, and had rows of jack-o-lanterns to greet the trick-or-treaters as they walked up the driveway. We even had a giant fake spiderweb above the door complete with a huge, life-like spider! According to Kaya and Samantha, tons of happy trick-or-treaters visited our house and we ran out of candy quickly. Luckily, they found Kit's emergency supply of chocolate bars!

It was a long, exciting night for all of us who went trick-or-treating. We all stayed together while going from house to house. Rebecca liked to chat with all of our neighbors after they gave her candy. Although this was very sweet of her, it became a bit tiresome. Jessica and Julie had to pull Kit back whenever she tried to run ahead. After a long night, our feet started hurting and our bags started to get very heavy, so we headed back home. We all dumped our bags of candy on the ground, to trade and sort through it. We were surrounded in a sea of candy! We gave some candy to Kaya and Samantha, since they didn't trick-or-treat. Everyone got out of their costumes and into their pajamas, and stuffed themselves with candy! We all ended up regretting that. We reluctantly brushed our teeth and plopped into bed with upset tummies. All in all, we had a fabulous Halloween!

An AG Gossip Halloween! (by Angela)

Halloween is getting closer and closer, and all of us here at AG Gossip are getting ready. We all have special jobs to get ready for this sweet and spooky holiday. Kit, Samantha, and Julie are the house decorating committee. They are going to jazz up the outside of the house to make sure we get lots of visits from trick-or-treaters! Kit has already pulled out her recipe for fake blood, and wants to have the scariest block on the house. On the other hand, Samantha wants to have happy jack-o-lanterns and friendly ghosts. I'm sure Julie will figure out some sort of compromise! Carely, Kaya, and Kirsten are in charge of making and purchasing treats and goodies. Carely is baking sugar cookies and frosting them to look like pumpkins, witch hats and, candy corn. Kirsten is being crafty and making adorable lollipop ghosts. And Kaya is buying truck loads of candy for hungry trick-or-treaters. Hopefully, we'll still have candy left by Halloween! Molly and Kit are turning bags of candy into piles of wrappers faster than you can say "jack-o-lantern"! Speaking of jack-o-lanterns, Jessica and Chrissa are busy carving pumpkins. They are certainly very messy and covered in pumpkin guts! Ewww! And what would Halloween be without costumes? Rebecca and Marisol are sewing many of our costumes for trick-or-treating. They have their hands full measuring us, snipping fabric, and sewing, sewing, sewing! Josefina, Nicki, Molly, and Felicity are planning a Spooktacular Halloween Party. They are busy planning all of the games, decorations, snacks, and are sending out invitations. Molly is complaining that her tongue is numb from licking so many envelopes. I am photographing the activities and supervising the whole operation. We're making sure that this Halloween is going to be fabulous! Uh oh, Josefina just found one of Kit's rubber spiders in her hair! Gotta go! Bye!

Felicity's Big Break (by Nicki)

As many of you may know, I love to ride horses. The other day, I was riding Kirsten's horse, Blackie, with Felicity. She was riding her horse, Penny. Felicity challenged me to a race. We agreed on a distant tree to serve as our finish line. Felicity slowly announced, "On your mark........get set-GO!" Oh Felicity! She finished her sentence so quickly, that I wasn't ready. By the time I started, Penny already had a large lead. I focused on the finish line getting closer and closer. All of a sudden, I heard a scream and a loud thud. I pulled on the reigns and brought Blackie to an abrupt stop. Felicity was on the ground and Penny was galloping away towards the stables. I could tell Felicity was in pain. In a few minutes, Felicity was rushed to the hospital. I started to ride back to the stables to check on Penny, when something caught my eye. I dismounted Blackie to get a closer look. I saw one of Penny's hoof prints in the sand. When I looked again I saw that it was actually in a ant pile with loads of fire ants scurrying around! Penny must have got bit by fire ants and threw Felicity off of her back during the race! I went back to the stables to make sure Penny was okay. After what seemed liked years of worrying, Felicity returned. I visited her in her room. She was sitting up in bed with one foot propped up on a pillow with a purple cast on it.  She energetically told me that she had broken her leg and then showed me her x-ray. I was the first one to sign her cast! I visited her everyday, sometimes with flowers or other small gifts. Her bedside table soon began to fill with get-well cards, gifts and goodies. Kaya even baked her special peanut butter cookies. Felicity loves to tell us the story about her fall and trip to the hospital. She is so excited about getting to use crutches! Even though she is stuck with a cast, crutches, and a broken leg, Felicity is still happy as ever! Felicity already told me the first thing she's gonna do when she gets her cast off. "Get ready to be beat,cause we're gonna finish that race!"