You have to be old to answer this question. Old enough to remember the 1980's at least.

What was your favorite Christmas present as a child? Model railroad? Special Barbie doll? That first record player confirming you were now a 'teenager'?

I'm asking for a column I'm writing in conjunction with Stardust. The best gifts of 25, 50 and 100 years ago plus favorite memories.

Probably Christmas of 1984 or 1985 for me. I received two of the coolest Transformer toys ever made, Jetfire and Devastator.

Jetfire:


Devastator:


The Christmas of 1997 was also very cool. My dad purchased for me one share of Green Bay Packers stock.

I wanted a drum set when I was a boy - but understand why my parents probably avoided those pages of the Sears/Montgomery Ward holiday catalogs. That's a lot of noise in the house.

After that - G.I. Joe and Star Wars toys were my favorites. I could play for hours with those and never lift my head up once to see the world around me - I was that engrossed in my adventures. That was obviously around 1976 or so.

Before that... Micronauts!



[This message has been edited by Dan Mowry (11/17/2009)]


I remember I got a Green Machine (like a Big Wheel on steroids) for Christmas but, of course, even that year with minimal snow (1978, I think?) I could only ride it for a few weeks before Winter really set in.

It was great - I could clear a whole sidewalk all the way from my house to Brian Putnam's and never once have to swerve from those weenies on their Big Wheels.



[This message has been edited by Dan Mowry (11/17/2009)]

My all time favorite christmas present as a kid was barbie's dream house. I still have the enitre set in my basement.

In the 1960s I received this toy bazooka from my uncle for Christmas...



In today's nanny society, they don't make toys like that any more. It was loud and shot stuff.

Oh yeah.....how freakin' COOL IS THAT?!!?

Girls hated it! So did dogs and cats!

And my wife has to ask why I always turn THE WHO up to VOLUME ELEVEN! Its a wonder I can hear anything at all!

I'm not sure, but definitely not socks or underwear.

I remember the snoopy character I got, but the all time best present was the shetland pony we all shared, although I don't believe she was a Christmas present. She pulled us on a toboggan all winter!

I don't remember any particular one for me but my brother has a memorable story. He was about 10 or 11 I think and into playing hockey. He wanted some really cool hockey skates for Christmas and he was a notorious snoop. He would sometimes unwrap his gifts and then re-wrap them! My folks bought the skates and hid them in the basement thinking he'd never find them. One day my mom went down to get something and there was my brother, sitting on the floor with the box of skates, tears streaming down his face, and saying "you got me my skates, you got me my skates" over and over again. We tell this story every year.

amorette, perhaps i'm a bit young, born in 1985. however, i really wanted the totally hair barbie (hair down to her ankles, in a skintight tye-dye elastic dress.) my babysitter had an old montgomery ward catalog from the late 70's and it contained pics of kiddie dream houses; you know the kind, beginner housewifery practice gear- also a holiday wish held onto for years, until my mother burst the bubble telling me that the catalog was 15+years old at the time...

I got my all-time favorite Christmas present when I was in high school at CCHS. We had no heat upstairs where the bedrooms were so I froze to death when it got really cold. My folks got me an electric blanket and I thought I was in heaven.

My father, uh... 'santa claus' stayed up all night xmas eve putting together my new 16 inch bicycle.

I was thrilled in the morning, untill I took the bike outside and tried to ride it. It was put together all wrong, would hardly even roll down the driveway.

So, I proceeded to take it apart, piece by piece. Down to the frame, even the bearings.

After the xmas day dinner my dad happened to come outside and observe the pile of material that at one point had been a shiney new bicycle.

It was exceptionally hard to sit down while I put my bike back together. I had to stand up the rest of the day from a really sore backside.

Later in the afternoon, when I peddled up the driveway to show off how well my new bike worked, my dad nearly cried.

From that point on, anytime something in the house didn't work well, my Dad would ask me to take a look at it to see if I could fix it.

That's probably the most memorable xmas gift I recieved.

King Zor. Early to middle 60's.

http://www.youtube.com/wa...VP4fMCMuIE

Also the original GI Joe - the one "Almost a foot tall!". Like these:

http://www.goantiques.com...11484.html

Later on I got a single-shot .22 rifle. It liked to go off almost spontaneously.

A 20 guage when I 13 it was put away because of misuse before school started up after new years. Momma's hens were off limits no matter how scarce real game was.

Probably not my *favorite* present but I remember being pretty happy to get one of these:

In the late '60's I really like Matchbox cars.

In the early '70's Hot Wheels came out and I liked the tracks more than the cars.

Also in the early '70's I got my first bike, a Schwinn with a shifter and a banana seat with sissy bar and slick tire- it was "Bad" (meaning very good); some jerk stole it out of my yard a couple years later.

I also really liked Lego's.

The old style larger G.I. Joe was pretty fun too; I had the boat with battery powered motor, cool.

When i got into my teen years skateboards were #1 on the list and eventually the Sony Walkman cassette player- they were cool, but looking back... pathetic compared to current mp3 players.

In 1965 I received my first rifle, a .22
from "Santa"

I was 10, what a present!

It had to be the big doll my grandmother bought me when I was six. She is the size of a one year old. I still have it.

I also have the wedding doll I got. She is long and thin. She has a beautiful glittery pink dress. She lives in my cedar chest.

[This message has been edited by Kacey (11/17/2009)]

My favorite gift came from Santa and it was a Chemistry set. I made some wonderful experiments.

My (not my families) favorite was a concoction that smelled like skunk.

How about favorite family holiday traditions? Or should that be a different thread?

It was in 1972 or 73 i think....but I got a shiny new Pogo Stick from Santa. It was awesome.

This was pretty fun

The single greatest toy in history....

The Playmobile Deluxe Dashboard circa 1961-ish

Two favorites, and I don't remember what years I received them,,,

The original Easy Bake Oven and another year was a "Chrissy Doll" that you could make her hair grow or you could shorten it again.

There's one Christmas gift that sticks out very vividly in my mind. It would have been in the very early 80's. We always had Christmas Eve at our Grandpa & Grandma Willson's house. When we arrived, stacked by the tree, were two of the most enormous boxes with my name on one and my brother's on the other. It's funny because I remember them as being just huge! Not too long ago I asked our mom if she remembered them. Needless to say, their size was relative to someone that would have been 7 or 8 at the time! Anyway, we about DIED waiting for after supper to open our packages. Inside of those giant boxes were a red and a blue beanbag. They were the coolest things we'd ever seen. We loved those silly things and used them until Mom threw them away for leaking styrofoam beads everywhere. Hmmmmm, just can't imagine kids today being as excited over bean bags as we were!

Snookie wrote:

How about favorite family holiday traditions? Or should that be a different thread?

Opening new pajamas on Christmas Eve. All other presents in the morning.

...The house smelling like pine tree, gingerbread, and my mom lighting candles all around the mantle, shelves, tables. That rare Christmas Eve that loaded us up with snow to where you could barely see the street lights outside except for the glowing halo of the lamp and the diagonal-blowing snow in the wind. Maybe, if the wind let up we could see those fantastic trees outside of the VA Hospital all decorated and lit up, from the corner of our block.

The next morning hearing the crunch-crunch of boots on all that snow as my Dad woke up early to go shovel snow - somehow foolishly thinking he'd be able to get it done before us kids woke up (at 5am, naturally) and stormed the living room.

Rushing Mom and Dad to hurry, hurry, hurry and go pick up Grandma so she could come over and all of us enjoy opening presents together (and yes, we had to have our Ovaltine first thing in the morning).

Paper everywhere, toys piled left and right, Mom's Christmas music playing on the record player in the stereo console (You have to listen to Burl Ives, Jose Feliciano, and TransSiberian Orchestra on HIFI, you know).

Kids scurry off to corners of the house so they can play with toys properly before church starts (making sure to sneak a tiny toy into your coat pocket to take with you, of course). Grown ups finally getting some coffee and breakfast.

The neighborhood was that special kind of quiet - the kind of quiet that hid the fact that there were a lot more people around but they were all inside those glowing, frosted-over windows doing roughly the same things we were. Whenever we'd cross paths coming or going on Christmas there was a few extra smiles and waves.

For some reason the snow seemed fluffier and deeper, the lights twinkled a bit brighter with more colors back then.

Of course, the Consumer Safety laws saw an end to some of my favorite Christmas decorations. No more bubbling liquid in a tube with a light bulb wrapped in paper leaves and carved wood berries and pine cones.

http://www.wishbookweb.com

http://www.feelingretro.c...mery-Ward/

http://www.feelingretro.c...-JCPenney/

[This message has been edited by David Schott (11/18/2009)]

I got to thinking.....the pogo stick was my favorite gift of all time when I was little....but when I was a little older, I think I was a freshman in HS....my brother Chuck gave me the "Eagles, Hotel California" album.....It was AWESOME!

Gunnar - that commercial about the "Sonic Blaster" is cool...I'm pretty sure that's Kurt Russell with the blaster, isn't it? He doesn't look much different as a kid.

Anyway, as for my favorite Xmas present as a kid, a couple stand-out. One was the 6 Million Dollar Man action figure and playset. The doll had a hole in the back of his head so you could look through his "bionic eye" and also little computer modules in his arm and legs you could take out and put back in. There was also this rocket thing you could put him in and it also unfolded into a hospital bed so you could "operate" on him. I remember that I loved getting it...unfortunately I also remember that, like many other toys I got for Christmas, I got bored with it pretty quickly.

Another was this racecar toy called "TTP" that you hooked-up to an air pump, pumped a few times to get the motor going, then pushed a lever to send it speeding across the room. My cats hated that one.

DAN - I definately remember MICRONAUTS - I had a couple of those.

I'm looking forward to Christmas this year, for sure: I'll be coming back to Miles with my daughters and my younger siblings will be there, too...not something I do every year, so it should be fun!

The electro shot shooting gallery.

Wish I still had it.

When I was seven I got to pick out Barbie clothes from the "toy catalog". I got a beautiful pink two piece satin outfit and a really pretty blue and green long dress. I still have those along with the original Barbie.

And who can forget Chatty Cathy?

Baby First Step. Must have been 1969ish. Unfortunately my little brother took her with him for his afternoon nap. She fell off the bed and her leg broke off. Still have her up in my closet - with her leg.

When I had just turned 12, and recently passed hunters safety, I walked out to the living room in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve to find this waiting for me.

I no longer have that rifle, but it was the greatest present I have ever received.

Slosh takes his presents seriously ...



... but then came "The Incident" - that fateful night when The Man (or was it President Obama?) was compelled - for the good of all goodly folk - to take Slosh's gun away ...



... Slosh couldn't quite explain what he was shooting at, or why he was looking at the cameraperson crosseyed.

All he knows is that he misses that gun.











Almost as badly as he missed whatever it was he was shooting at.

poison: That Deluxe Reading dashboard is cool! Do you still have it?

I'd have to say getting a Giggles doll from my sister. I recently bought a working one on Ebay, so I "pretend" like I took care of my toys, like Kacey!

Slosh, you'll shoot your eye out.

Turning the tables-My most memorable Christmas gift is one I diden't get. Back in the days B/4 the war, Sears and Monkey Ward would send out their Christmas catalogs. As a kid about wore them out and found a "Cowboy" outfit that I just had to have. It came complete with,hat, chaps.spurs,vest and of course,holstered cap guns. Now Dad and the neighbors would wear the same thing minus the guns when working livestock,and I wanted to look like them. I fantisized over that outfit and how it would look on me. Somehow, I was convinced that I would get it. Come Christmas morning,like any kid was up early but alas, no Cowboy outfit. Cried my eyes out, but my parents cried right along with me as they could not afford to buy it. Quite a change from then and now as I watch what my Grandkids get for Christmas.

Nope, Kacey. I put a lot of miles on that dashboard. The transmission finally gave out somewhere near Topeka, so it was off to the boneyard, never to be seen again. Wish I still had it, it would probably be worth a fortune now.

[This message has been edited by Lorin Dixson (11/21/2009)]