Madame
Alexander
Thirty years. Thirty dolls. Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Mop Top Wendy, the Red Queen, Victorian Christmas, Dancing Clara, Snowflake Skater, Peacock Princess — every entry a miniature portrait of an actual Madame Alexander doll, brought to Keepsake scale by John "Collin" Francis since 1996.
The First Lady of Dolls, on the Christmas Tree
Beatrix Alexander Behrman grew up above her father's doll "hospital" — a repair shop where broken dolls came to be restored — and became, in time, one of the most influential figures in the history of American doll-making. As Madame Alexander, she began designing handmade cloth dolls in the 1920s and by the 1930s was producing composition dolls with painted features and sleep eyes, launching a company whose collectors would span three generations. The many endearing designs she created — including the beloved Mop Top Wendy, a character who became the face of the Alexander Doll Company and whose name and image have persisted across decades of collections — earned her the title the First Lady of Dolls.
In 1996, Hallmark Keepsake introduced a series based on the actual Madame Alexander doll collection: miniature ornament versions of real Alexander dolls, each one sculpted by John "Collin" Francis to capture the specific costume, expression, and character of the doll it depicts. The debut was Cinderella — based on the "Cinderella 1995" doll from the Alexander catalog, the latest of many lovely Cinderella dolls the company had produced since 1937. Starting with Cinderella established the series' range immediately: these ornaments would draw from the full breadth of the Madame Alexander collection — fairy tale characters, holiday figures, storybook heroines, original Alexander designs, and the enduring Wendy herself.
Thirty years and thirty dolls later, the series continues. The roster includes Little Red Riding Hood, the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland, Dancing Clara from the Nutcracker, the Snowflake Skater, Victorian Yuletide, Holidazzle, the Peacock Princess, and Deer Santa. Each one a real Madame Alexander doll made small enough to hang on a Christmas tree.
"An entire tree of these beautiful ornaments would make any doll lover or collector happy."
— Hallmark collector community, on the Madame Alexander series
Cinderella #1 (1996) · Mop Top Wendy #3 (1998) · Dancing Clara #9 (2004)
John "Collin" Francis — Sculptor of the Dolls
John "Collin" Francis is the Hallmark Keepsake artist who has sustained the Madame Alexander series across its entire thirty-year run — a remarkable tenure for a single artist on a single series, and one that has produced a recognizable visual consistency across three decades of doll subjects. His work on the series requires capturing, at ornament scale, the specific costume detail and expressive face that makes each Madame Alexander doll identifiable as the character it represents: the particular blue of Cinderella's gown, the red cape of Little Red Riding Hood, the ice skates and earmuffs of the Snowflake Skater.
Francis also created the Lighthouse Greetings series (1997–2009) — a very different subject requiring very different sculptural skills. The Lighthouse Greetings series demonstrates his range as an architectural sculptor; the Madame Alexander series demonstrates his ability to capture fabric, face, and figure in miniature. Across both bodies of work, Francis brings the same essential discipline: at whatever scale he's working, the thing must be recognizable as that specific thing, not just as a member of its category.
Mop Top Wendy — 1998 (#3)
Wendy is the character most closely associated with the Madame Alexander Doll Company — the recurring face of the brand, the doll whose name appears across more Alexander collections than any other. The Mop Top Wendy design, with its distinctive hair and rosy-cheeked expression, earned Beatrix Alexander Behrman the title "First Lady of Dolls." The 1998 Hallmark series entry is the third in the collection and the first appearance of Wendy specifically — a character who would return multiple times in the series across the following decades. For collectors who want to build the Madame Alexander Hallmark set around a single character, Wendy's multiple appearances across thirty entries make her the most rewarding thread to follow.
Shop Mop Top Wendy — The First Lady →
Peacock Princess #29 (2024) · Deer Santa #30 (2025)
The Doll That Becomes an Ornament
The Madame Alexander Hallmark Keepsake series works because it begins with something already beloved and makes it small enough to hang on a tree. Each ornament in the series is not a new character invented for the Hallmark catalog; it is an actual Madame Alexander doll — a real collectible that existed in the Alexander Doll Company's catalog — reproduced at ornament scale with the costume, face, and character of the original. The Holidazzle ornament depicts the 2017 Holidazzle doll. The Cinderella ornament depicts the 1995 Cinderella doll from the Alexander catalog.
For collectors who already love Madame Alexander dolls, the series is an extension of a collecting tradition they already inhabit — a way to have the dolls on the Christmas tree in a format that doesn't require their full display space or investment. For collectors who come to Madame Alexander through the Hallmark series, it is a door into a larger world: behind each ornament is a full-size doll, a doll history, a company whose tradition goes back to the 1920s and the little girl who grew up in her father's repair shop learning to love what dolls could be.
Tips for the Collection
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01A dedicated Madame Alexander tree is one of the most distinctive displays in Hallmark collecting. Thirty ornaments — fairy tale characters, holiday figures, ballerinas, Victorian ladies, and Wendy in multiple costumes — create a visually unified tree that reads as a celebration of a specific collecting tradition. The plum and gold color aesthetic of the series displays beautifully as a group.
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02Follow Wendy through the series. Wendy appears multiple times across thirty years — Mop Top Wendy (#3, 1998), Wendy Wishes You a Merry Christmas (#20, 2015), Jolly and Joyful Wendy (#26, 2021), Christmas Cheer Wendy (#27, 2022), and others. Collecting the complete Wendy thread within the series is a specific and rewarding sub-collection.
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03The 2014 #19 is the series' most historically significant entry. "Wendy Celebrates Madame's 90th Anniversary" — a doll designed to mark the Alexander Doll Company's 90th anniversary, making it the ornament most directly connected to the company's own history. It is the series' most commemorative piece.
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04The fairy tale characters form a natural sub-collection. Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland, Dancing Clara from the Nutcracker — the storybook entries cluster naturally as a subset of the full thirty, and displayed together they create a storybook library in miniature.
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05The complete 30-doll run from 1996 through 2025 is available at Already Christmas. All thirty ornaments — from the founding Cinderella through the 2025 Deer Santa — are in the collection. The full Madame Alexander Hallmark catalog, every year, every character.
All 30 Entries — 1996 to 2025
Thirty Madame Alexander dolls at Keepsake scale. Click any doll to shop.
Cinderella. Little Red Riding Hood. Mop Top Wendy. The Red Queen. Dancing Clara. The Snowflake Skater. The Peacock Princess. Thirty years of the First Lady of Dolls — each one small enough for a branch, each one based on an actual Alexander doll, each one exactly as John "Collin" Francis intended her to look.
Thirty dolls. All thirty here.
✦ Part of our Series: Hallmark Keepsake Official Series, Explored ✦