Remember the moment you opened a Christmas gift to find your very first doll? No matter how plain or ornate, you held on to that fabric friend for years, maybe until its arms and eyes and hair fell off. You remember, don’t you?

Members of the Rowan Museum Inc. and the Rowan Doll Society remember, too. They have put more than 300 dolls on display in every room and corner of the historic Utzman-Chambers house on South Jackson Street until Dec. 26.

What makes dolls, of all gifts, special and wonderful enough to have such an elaborate exhibit?

“Christmas is doll time,” says Joanne Moody, chairperson of the doll society, which has themed this year’s exhibit, “A Celebration of Dolls.”

“People tend to think dolls at Christmas. Even women, and some men who don’t really care anything about dolls … always remember the doll they got at Christmas time,” she says.

The exhibit is a doll collector’s dream. In a glass display case in the kitchen are 1-inch “Frozen Charlotte” dolls and celluloid dolls from the 1940s.

And Nancy Ann Storybook dolls by Rowena Haskins (Nancy Ann Abbott) stare through the glass case. These dolls are a series that would include themes from a season to a birthday to a fairy tale character like Goldilocks.

There are also “Peddler”dolls, “Ginny”dolls by Vogue Dolls and a “Tiny Tears” doll, one of the first dolls that “cried.”

Cloth, porcelain, composition, china head, paper mache and leather dolls sit, stand and smile in the living room. Dim lighting and still air protect the toys’ antique beauty.

In the master bedroom, where 36 “Presidents’ First Ladies” dolls are found, Mary Jane Fowler, the museum’s curator, talks about the history of the federal house and the room.

“In 1953, Rowan County celebrated its bicentennial and they had collected a lot of artifacts and antique furniture and some ladies got together and said, ‘Well, here we’ve got all this stuff, so let’s start the museum,’ ” Fowler explains. “So they decided to start the museum here in 1955 instead of tearing it down. They got the money for it through the annual Rowan Antiques Show.”

The bedroom was set up around 1957 and enough money was raised from the third antiques show to buy the antique bed: a unique bed with a straw tick for firmness and a feather tick for softness.

Standing around and in front of the bed are Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Eleanor Roosevelt and Jackie Kennedy and the wives of presidents Coolidge, Eisenhower and Hoover:some of the “Ladies.” But not all of the themare in the likeness of former presidents’ wives; some are daughters, daughters-in-law and nieces.

The dolls were made by Madame Alexander, “the queen of dolls.” They were gifted to the museum last year by Elizabeth R. Glover in memory of her late husband, former clerk of court Francis R. Glover.

“Back in the ’60s and ’70s, Madame Alexander was the doll maker,”Fowler says. “They were done well. The outfits are accurate but they are a little more ornate than they would really be.”

To enhance the nostalgia, “Daughters of the 13 Colonies”dolls surround George and Martha Washington dolls on the kitchen mantel.

But not all of the dolls to be seen are antique. There is a Shirley Temple doll, along with Raggedy Anns and a doll that carries a name that should be familiar to anyone: On the secretary in the living room are two Barbie dolls, including “Promenade in the Park Barbie,”in a dazzling outfit and glowing with that familiar Barbie smile. Though the two were removed from their boxes for display, Moody offers a suggestion to Barbie doll collectors.

“Little girls play with Barbies and they’re wonderful and that’s what they’re made for,”she says. “But if you were going to collect Barbie dolls, you would not take them out of the box. They should stay in the box for display.”

And looking up at Barbie from a comfortable position on the floor is “Josefina,”an “American Girl” doll.

“It is a very desirable doll and if you have a little girl and she likes dolls, she would probably have to have one of those,”Moody says.

Each 18-inch “girl” has an historic story with her. Josefina, which is probably a Tejana/Native American doll, has all the clothing and accessories from her time period.

“This is just getting the new generation of doll collectors,”Moody says. “They will play with these dolls, their mothers will tuck the dolls away, they will grow up and be teenagers and get married and have children. And, then, when they’re in their late ’30s, early ’40s, they’ll say, ‘Oh, Iwant my dolls!’ And, if mother has saved them, they will be there.”

Moody admits she and the doll society members take their hobby seriously.

“We don’t just like dolls, love dolls. It’s not a second childhood, it’s a continuation of the first one.”

The doll society began in 1980 when, Moody explains, “After two sisters were talking to each other before Christmas. They said their aunt had a lot of dolls and they had a lot of dolls so they decided to see if there were other people who were interested. They put out the word and had 17 people at their first meeting. They started meeting informally and then became a part of the national organization, the United Federation of Doll Clubs.”

The society has had their dolls on display in the Rowan Museum and at the library before but this has been the most extensive display they’ve had.

“If you love dolls, this is the place to be,”says Kaye Brown Hirst, executive director of Rowan Museum Inc. “We know that people are downtown shopping and they want to do special things and they have guests in town and this is a great place to bring them.”

Although none of the dolls on display are for sale, the society does have one 1999 Celebration Doll for sale for $8.

“Every doll lover wants to be able to bring a doll back when they go somewhere,”Fowler admits. “The doll we’re selling is not a fine doll, but it’s a cute little doll for someone to buy their child or just because they came here.”

More special than the dolls on display is the collaboration between the museum and the society, the women admit.

“We just want to bring the past to the present,”Hirst says. “And if it’s a doll,”Moody interjects, “we love it.”

Exhibit days and times are Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Money raised from the exhibit will help the society pay its dues to the national organization and to continue giving donations to organizations like the Salvation Army and the Ronald McDonald House.

“We’ve decided that if this is successful, we’ll do this again and we’ll have different dolls each Christmas,”Moody says.