As an atheist, I love decorating for the holidays with homemade dolls.
My great aunts and uncles lived together in a 10-bedroom, A-frame house on Lake Charlevoix, Michigan. Three sisters and their husbands, they were childless. They all worked in the insurance industry.
The three-story house had hidden passageways and rooms for the Underground Railroad. We kids loved playing hide-and-seek.
"The dolls are our children," they said. The men carved the doll faces and bodies, and made ...