It’s no secret that I LOVE TV. People often denigrate it by calling it the “boob tube” or the “idiot box,” but, to me, those are just instances of “sticks and stones.” As long as you don’t hurl pebbles at my flat-screen Vizio, it’s all good.

One of the things I like best about just chilling out and watching a program—comedies and zombie shows are my favorites, go figure—is when a doll makes an unexpected guest appearance. So far, the new year is only a few weeks old, and already dolls are popping up everywhere on the pop culture front.

Every so often, I’ll meet someone who will be tickled pink that I work with dolls. After answering the obligatory North Pole and Santa’s Workshop questions—I telecommute, I explain, so I don’t need to check in with the reindeer on a daily basis, and yes, Rudolph’s nose IS that shiny—I explain how the world of dolls is actually quite huge, innovative, constantly re-inventing itself, and can be quite profitable.

When the issue of capital is raised, so are the eyebrows.

Oh, my goodness! Barbie, why are you such an attention hog? Well, “hog” isn’t the right word when you are dealing with the physically fit vinyl one. Neither is “glory hound,” because Barbie is many things, but a dog is not one of them.

In typical polarizing fashion, Barbie has managed to kick off the new year with enormous Yahoo and Google searches, coverage in all forms of mass media, and a petition asking her to be a role model—yet again—but this time for a very unexpected, very meaningful, and surprisingly controversial cause.

Christmas 2011 has come and gone, and I am left with an acre’s worth of wrapping-paper scraps and scads of mangled ribbons and bows. The debris that is left behind after the annual orgy of gift-exchanging is truly amazing. That’s one of the key miracles of Christmas: so much gift wrapping, package decorating, home ornamentation, and front-lawn festooning—hours and hours, days and days, weeks and weeks of preparation, and it’s over in the jingle of a bell. And still we do it all again next year!

The beauty behind a blog is that opinions matter. Not just my opinion, but yours too. It’s a give-and-take—a chance to have a cyber conversation with newfound friends and some semi-scary detractors too! (It’s always amazing how heated people can become when they misread or misconstrue a blog posting.)

For this, my final posting of 2011, I thought I’d share with you some viewpoints about dolls from some very unexpected and well-known figures. I’ve been on a soapbox for nearly 80 columns now. Here is a chance to hand the invisible megaphone over to some other folks—authors, actresses, people in the public eye who have been touched by—and in some cases, sadly not touched by—dolls.

The other day, I was talking with a friend of mine, who asked quite simply, “Why are there no tomboy dolls?”

That question immediately prompted me to recite a litany of dolls that displayed so-called tomboy traits. “Well, there’s Skooter,” I said, referencing the flaxen-haired, freckle-faced friend of Skipper. “And there’s Midge,” I rattled off, mentioning the red-haired, rosy-cheeked, freckle-faced pal of Barbie. “Why, there’s also Tammy,” I stated, thinking she used to come with a tennis ensemble and a one-piece exercising unitard, “and, of course, there is . . . well, some kind of cowgirl doll from Alexander, I’m sure. You know, a ‘Wendy Loves to Rustle and Rope’—something like that.”

There are some indisputable truths about Christmas in New York. The first is, traffic multiplies in a way that would defy Stephen Hawking’s ability to calculate. The second is, tourists descend from all over the globe with digital cameras and Flip video recorders en masse, and I am always the “kind stranger” selected to shoot the group for posterity. And third, my friend Cam is bound to telephone and ask me to accompany him to some “new and magical” wonderland.

Thanksgiving is certainly ushers in my happiest, cheeriest, most sustained moods. A few times throughout the year, my spirits will spike (my children’s birthdays, their good report cards, family trips, a “Walking Dead” episode with lots of zombie attacks and subterfuge), but usually I am on a pretty even keel: a little tired, a tiny bit tense, a tad anxious, and a bit goofy. Come the third week of November, though, I am suddenly on a month-long sugar high. I love the kick-off of the holiday season, and Thanksgiving makes me grateful for what I have, who I know, and where I live. And, as usual, the world of dolls teaches a valuable lesson about thinking of others and reaching out from your own heart.

On August 20, 2011, reality star Kim Kardashian proudly proclaimed “I do,” and skeptics everywhere snickered. Now, less than three months later, Ms. Kardashian has revealed that her made-in-media-heaven marriage has gone kaput. Despite telling correspondents how the nuptials were the moment for her and her rent-a-groom, Kris, to shine, the ceremony has only ended up being the punch line for a thousand late-night comedy monologues. Not since Barbie and Ken parted ways has the breakup of two such plastic people been reported!

Halloween is the second most celebrated holiday in the country—only Christmas trumps it. So, naturally, dolls of a ghoulish silhouette levitate and mummy-step down the runways in October. Bob Mackie—the genius stylist behind Cher and Carol Burnett, two contrasting personalities and personas—has a “Countess Dracula” doll available for adult Barbie collectors. It’s a rather unusual vision of what Dracula’s wife would look like—or maybe it’s Drac’s mom? In that case, it’s one spicy and sexy mama.