Triplets

When we were little, my two younger sisters and I spent most of our time together. We shared a bedroom, and in the early years we even shared a bed. It was perfect for those cold winter nights in an unheated bedroom. Our mother made some of our clothes, and quite often the outfits were the same or very similar. People at our church thought we were triplets because we looked so much alike, and when our mother made those matching outfits, they were sure of it. There were already one set of triplets in our church, and two sets of twins. They didn't need us to be triplets, too, and soon found out we weren't.

Every year our mother would order toys for us from the Sears catalog. She didn't drive, and Sears would let her stay home, charge what she bought and take her time paying it back. She often joked when we were older and knew the truth about Santa that she would get her bill paid off just in time for the next Christmas season. Each year after Christmas, the three of us were given the old catalogs to play with and the first thing we did was start choosing models to cut out for paper dolls. These were our first paper dolls and we had the best time matching clothes to people, and people to people to make families. Of course, after noticing what we were doing, our mother decided to find us "real" paper dolls for Christmas. We were happy with them at first, but it didn't take long for them to bore us more quickly than our home-made ones did.

Later on, our mother discovered Christmas Clubs and she no longer had to rely on Sears. Most years we received identical toys for Christmas. One year she and our father took us to a local store that carried toys and let us tell them which toys we liked. That Christmas my sisters and I received baby dolls. I don't remember if they had picked them out, too, but I had, and I thought it was the most wonderful present ever.
Another year my father ordered sleds for us for Christmas, but a neighbor kid whose father worked at the store told us and spoiled the surprise. It didn't bother us as much as it did our father.

None of us minded being dressed alike and receiving the same or similar toys, at least I don't remember anyone complaining. We played together anyway, and if people mixed us up, we didn't care. It wasn't until we were older, and our teachers kept calling us by a sister's name in class, that we started caring, and insisting on our own identities.