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Christmas is a magical time of year for children and seemed to be even more so, in the late 1950s, when I was growing up.

Every year into our mail slot a Sears catalogue would come tumbling down. My younger sister, Martha, and I would pore through it, circling all the toys we wanted Santa to bring us on Christmas morning.

Of course, my father had told us, time and time again, that Santa Claus was a very busy man, making toys for all the world’s children. So he was limited on what he could bring to each child. We knew we weren’t going to get everything we circled, but it was so much fun, wishing and hoping and we were endlessly entertained by the possibilities, as we drew our wide red and green circles.

And then I spotted her. The Dew Drop Doll.

At eight years old, I had never seen such a beautiful doll. Twenty one inches tall, with bright green eyes, she was dressed in a pink sun suit with a matching hat. Of course, you could give her water and she would wet, but what was really special about this doll was that she could actually wear infant clothes.

I had to have her.

When Martha saw me circle her in red, she decided she wanted one also. Even though Martha was not really a doll person, what she was, was a copycat. I happen to notice the price, which was twelve dollars (very expensive!) but after all Santa wasn’t buying it.

I circled other things also, a Clue game, a Mickey Mouse hat, a slinky, a Bubble Lamp for our room. I made another list for the items I wanted tucked in my stocking, mostly candy, Boston Baked Beans, Neccos, Red Hots, Candy Cigarettes, Jaw Breakers and Black Jack Chewing Gum.

When my father saw the list, he frowned, and I got the lecture again about Santa Claus and his limitations, which I really didn’t understand. Santa wasn’t limited when he was giving presents to my friends.

Well, maybe I was just greedy.

About a week before Christmas, I was in bed, comforted by the chatter of my parents who were downstairs, watching television.

Suddenly I heard crying through the paper thin wall. Our next door neighbor was a woman we barely knew and now obviously in distress.

My parents heard it also. My father decided to go next door and find out what was wrong. I wasn’t comfortable with this. Why the woman could be a Communist or a murderer like the lady in Stage Fright!

I waited on the top of the staircase for his return.

I could hear him mumbling through the walls and, when he came back, some time later, he told my mother that it was bad news.

“Her husband left her,” he announced grimly. “Just walked out the door.”

“That’s terrible,” my mother said, “and around Christmas time too! Those poor little boys!”

“They’re going to have a sad holiday.” My father paused and said something about helping.

I was somewhat confused. The boys hadn’t been bad. Why would Santa deprive them, making it a sad holiday?

The next day my father called the eldest three of his five children into the living room. We got the lecture about Santa’s limitations again, only this time it was worse. “It’s going to be a lean Christmas,” he told us. “Santa Claus is not feeling well and he fell behind making toys.”

And then just like that - I knew.

There was no Santa Claus.

There was only my father, who began to scrimp and save, beginning every September, to give us a merry Christmas. And now, it wasn’t going to be so merry, because some of that money would be spent on the children next door.

Suddenly I was angry. Angry at my father. Why did he have to be such a do-gooder? Couldn’t the entire neighborhood take up a collection? Why did it have to fall on him alone? I was angry at the man, who walked out on his wife and children, so close to the holidays. And I was angry at the two rambunctious little boys, who would be receiving trucks and fire engines and blocks with money that should have been spent on us.

But I didn’t say any of that, not in front of my siblings. Instead I mumbled, “Tell Santa Claus the only thing I want is the Dew Drop Doll.”

“Me, too,” Martha echoed.

My father shook his head sadly, which I didn’t take to be a good sign.

Yet much to my surprise, there she was sitting upright on Christmas morning, the perfect little Dew Drop Doll, wrapped in plastic. I didn’t receive much else, but I didn’t care. I was so overwhelmed I could barely touch her. I actually kept her in the plastic for two months. By the time I felt comfortable playing with her, I had outgrown dolls.

Not so my sister, Martha, who tore open the plastic and didn’t put the doll down for days. Martha tended to be a little rough with her toys, although, when I mentioned that to her recently, she vehemently denied it.

Seven years after that Christmas, my father dropped dead of a massive heart attack. The woman next door (whose name I never knew) drove three hours in the pouring rain to attend his funeral.

“I read about it in the papers,” she told my mother. “I had to come and pay my respects. I have never forgotten how kind your family was to me. Your husband made my sons’ Christmas a happy time. I don’t know what I would have done without his help. Your husband was a good man.”

Yes, my father was a good man, but I wasn’t such a kind child. (I work on that every day.)

I would have kept my Dew Drop Doll forever. But when I came home from college one day, I discovered that my mother had sold it at a tag sale, along with my Shirley Temple Doll, my high school class ring and my yearbook.

Recently I saw that someone is selling a Dew Drop Doll on E Bay.

I’m tempted.