I remember rushing down to the tree that Christmas morning... ah, back in the days when I could pull myself out of bed before seven o'clock on purpose.... I tore through the presents, my sister at my side and found.... A PONY!!! But... it was BIG. And STUFFED. I looked at my mother and father. "Oh, look," my mom smiled, "Santa brought you a My Little Pony!" I looked back at the big blue and pink thing. "Yeah, I guess so, but he brought the wrong kind."
Now, don't get me wrong -- I loved my big softy Bowtie -- but when you're six and dreaming in small vinyl figurines... well, that pony under the Christmas tree was a sad, sad, sight. But, it was Christmas just the same, and how could a child really be sad at Christmas? --and my sister got big softy Cotton Candy so we could play. And I grew to love Bowtie; she soon went with me everywhere. She even went to the hospital with me when I had a severe allergic reaction to the chlorine in my cousin's swimming pool. Her hair soon grew frizzy from being brushed and braided so often. And of course, she snuggled up to sleep with me and Bunny (my beaten up old white rabbit) every night.
I saw the My Little Pony video that year I was seven, and never again since; a friend of mine, her mother owned the local video rental, and she could get to see the movie whenever she wanted! I imagined the luckiest little girl in the world would be the one who's parent worked for the pony company. I could just see the little girl who had every single My Little Pony... how envious was I of a dream!
The next time Christmas rolled around, I was prepared. I was taking no chances what-so-ever with Santa Claus... I was writing him a list of EXACTLY what I wanted. The best thing was that our second grade teacher gave us a chance to write the letters in class, and was even going to deliver them to Santa HERSELF!!!
"Dear Santa, [I wrote]
I hope the elves dress warm up at the north pole [I always imagined it was extremely cold there; I had just seen a National Geographic special on explorers who had gotten terrible fostbite and sicknesses on a quest to find the northpole. Eventually, they did find it, but I wondered throughout the whole special why no mention was ever made of Santa's Workshop, which couldn't have been very far away]
I hope that Rudolph and the other Reindeers are ready for the Big Night, and that it isn't too foggy so that you can find your way. [I always wanted a reindeer, after a horse; I really wanted a horse, but all we had were goats, and though I often rode the big-horned bucks, it was not the same]
I hope Mrs. Claus is well, too [I was wondering if I had spent enough room on the small talk and could now get on to the IMPORTANT part of the letter, and was it polite or not to ask what was Ms Claus' first name???]
Santa, for Christmas I would like:
My Little Pony Dream Castle
My Little Pony Waterfall
My Little Pony Baby Buggy
a My Little Pony, a little one, the plastic ones with hair, I would really like a unicorn.
There, I thought. THAT was very specific, and at the same time, gave Santa a lot to choose from. It wasn't that I really wanted ALL of those things (though every girl can dream) it was just that I didn't want him to make the same mistake as LAST YEAR and get another wrong pony. Unfortunately, my teacher didn't understand it that way. "What a wantful child!" she scolded me. "Didn't I tell you all only to ask for ONE thing?"
But I only wanted one thing... I wanted a My Little Pony!
That Christmas morning I could hardly wait for my parents to pull themselves into the tree room so I could open my presents. I went straight for the package I reasoned to be the right size, tore off the paper and -- MY LITTLE PONY!!! It was a UNICORN! It was PINK! It had STARS as her symbol! What more could a little girl ask for? Her name was Twilight.
After that, ponies began to slowly trickle in. For my next birthday, in June, my mom asked me what I would like. What sort of question was that?! "A Pony!" "But you already have one pony." "But... I need two, so they can... talk to each other." So the package that was sitting beside my cake was decidedly pony shaped. That was Heart Throb.
The next Christmas was the Christmas of the Baby Ponies. I still think Baby Glory is one of the most adorable babies ever; she was my Christmas present. By that time, many of my friends had the pony bug, but it turned out that their parents were far more indulgent, and went I arrived back in school that January with little Glory in hand, I was surprised to see that tallying wars had begun over who had the most ponies.
My two best friends had ponies; Erika had Mommy Glory (which worked out perfectly :) and Parasol -- the first and only Rainbow Pony I saw for years and years; later, I gave her Powder for her birthday. Andrea had Cotton Candy, Lemon Drop, Moondancer, and Bubbles. Wasn't Bubbles the cutest? Another girl had tons of ponies, but claimed her mother wouldn't let her take any to school, and another -- my goodness, I can't remember her name, but I can remember her ponies, they were Magic Star and Windwhistler! And that was sort of our little herd. We always tried to get as many different ponies among ourselves, because it seemed silly to have double ponies. I had decided for my next birthday, I wanted Sparkler, because I had always been partial to Unicorns. Then, a month before my birthday, Andrea had her birthday -- and she got Sparkler! I was sad, because I didn't want to get a "double" pony. Andrea felt kind of guilty. So guilty in fact, that she gave me a pony for my birthday. Lickety Split. With in twenty seconds I was completely in love with the little pink pony and she remains one of my all-time favourites to this day -- and the only one of my original ponies that still exists! Andrea, where ever you are, THANK YOU!
That was also the birthday I received Paradise... she was so pretty. I didn't really have an allowance back then, but every now and then my parents let me buy something if I was very good. I bought Posy; by that time, I finally figured out the significance of those little hoof points on the back of the cards. I had seen the lovely Birthflower Ponies, and had already fallen in love with Rose, though I didn't have her. My next pony, I knew, and Rose would be mine...
I never knew Posy was going to be my last pony. I was nine, and I still played ponies while all the other forth graders had begun to worry about their hair, their clothes, and other utterly boring things like that. But my mom, who still didn't particularly care for horses, decided I had ENOUGH. I had six little ponies... in my eyes, that wasn't HARDLY enough!
But there isn't a heck of a lot you can do when you're nine years old. Especially when your parents don't listen to you, and no matter HOW many times you tell them NOT to give you clothes for your birthday, you end up with another pair of slacks. The first real blow came when my two-year-old sister cut brand-new Paradise's mane to the skin! I was promised a replacement, but somehow, it never happened.
Posy's lonely little pony point stayed safely tucked away in my jewelry box, but one pony point was as good as no pony point. I grew a little older, and did start getting an allowance -- a dollar a week when I was twelve -- but by that time, the average pony costed ten dollars! I *still* remember the good old days when My Little Ponies sold for $4.99. I couldn't afford them. I was also getting to that age when I tried telling myself I didn't need them, I didn't want them. Most of my original collection was by that time gone, too; we had a dog, Smoky, the first and last dog we ever took from a pound, and he single-handedly ATE my ENTIRE pony collection except for Lickety Split! (He also buried kittens alive, but that's a completely different story).
Oh, sad little me, no ponies, no more dreams... For a long time, no thoughts of horses. When I was sixteen, we actually babysat two horses for the summer. One was Baily, an old broken- down race horse, but kindest, most gentle tempered horse that ever lived. We didn't even fence him, just let him wander around the farm, amble up to the house, stick his great long nose up to the kitchen window and contently watch us inside. He loved hugs; he loved to be petted; he was cuddly horse. The other, Barney, was a brute. He was a quarter-horse pony cross, and every now and then he'd get that stubborn pony-glare in his eye, and did only what he wanted. He threw my sister, and she broke her arm; he spooked and fell on me, I snapped a wrist and compressed my hip. I guess I don't blame my mother for still not being particularly fond of horses; needless to say, Barney went back to his people, and though we loved Baily, he was too old and weak a horse to last a winter all by himself.
But My Little Ponies... when did they fall again into my life? I guess I have to give the credit to my sister :) She's the one who found the pretty green-haired Boy Pony at the Salvation Army; he was in perfect condition, and I had never seen a pony with symbols all over the body. (True, back in the younger years, I'd had a dream about the Twice as Fancy Ponies, and the niftiest thing was that it had been a year before the actual ponies came out! In my dream, I was a member on the Pony Design Board (what fun!) and we had to come up with a new idea for a pony that was "twice the fun". We came up with a couple ideas that we quickly trashed, the most memorable being the two-tailed pony (no, I don't know what I was dreaming :). At last we arrived at a pony that had designs all over her body -- Twice as Fancy! My prototype stood in Sparkler's pose (remembering my Sparkler fetish :) and her symbols were purple and white morning glories all on a vine. Of course, my pony "Morning Glory" never ever existed, but about a year or so later, the "Twice as Fancy" ponies arrived... but... wasn't that my idea...? ;) Anyway, the pony my sister had found second hand was Daddy Sweet Celebration, though it would be another two years before I knew his name, another two years before I began collecting seriously. He, along with Baby Toppy I found that summer at a garage sale, were the keys that opened the door to the ponies of the re-use market... and I found my place again in seventh heaven.
The next batch of ponies I found was again at the Salvation Army: Paradise -- with HAIR! Peachy! Cherries Jubilee! Truly, who I had always wanted when I was little! Parasol, the prettiest Rainbow pony of all! I knew all their names! I remembered them! I loved them! I wanted them all again!
And that's how it all began. As I write this, I have 202 little ponies. Twilight is sitting under my Christmas tree, just as she was so many years ago, and a Baby Glory is waiting for me not far away, and then I will have all my original ponies once again. I don't expect to have every pony, I guess I just focus more on the ones I really wanted as a child. I have a soft spot for all the early ones, the simple Unicorns, Pegasus and Earth ponies, the So-Soft ponies, though it's so hard to make them look "like new". I still don't have Rose, she's a tough one to find, and then there are some I think are just so sweet -- like Twice as Fancy Baby Sugarberry -- but unfortunately so does everyone else, so (sadly) I don't believe she's one I'll ever have. I think some ponies are much prettier then others, and I do think a few are almost ugly, but I love them all, in their own way. I guess the girl who pretended she was a horse on the playground will always have room for any horse in heart.
