Memorable Christmas Gifts of the Past

Since Christmas is right around the corner, this week's Flashback Friday post is devoted to memorable Christmas toys/gifts.

One of the first Christmases I can remember I got quite a bit of toys, including a red tricycle that I road around the house that first morning as well as my brown Fischer Price cassette recorder.

Another memorable gift was the year we got a Nintendo game system. I've mentioned it before in various posts on here - my childhood best friend and her older brothers had a Nintendo at their house that we would play often and since I had an interest in video games, when an older cousin got a Nintendo he sent us his older Atari system, but it just wasn't the same. The Nintendo system we got came with 3 games - Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt (with the gun controller) and a track and field game that worked with the Nintendo trackpad.

I also remember getting quite a bit of Play-Doh sets over the years - I LOVED Play-Doh and back in the late 80s/early 90s there were plenty of sets you could get to make all sorts of crazy Play-Doh creations! I remember one of the sets I had was Burger King set - it came with a Play-Doh "grill" to make burger patties and fries and there were the stamps to create lettuce and tomatoes... I had too much fun with Play-Doh!

I loved coloring books too so every year Santa would bring me some. One year he really confused me though as he brought me a whole stack of new coloring books, however some were duplicates! I didn't understand why Santa would do that and then I started to feel bad, thinking that some little kid out there was some of their coloring books because Santa accidentally gave me multiples! Oops!

One big gift I got in grade school was my American Girl doll Samantha. As I've mentioned before, at one point in school, American Girl dolls were all the rage at school. Us girl were always checking the books out of the library and reading them together in our freetime. Some would bring their dolls to school... at the time there were the original 3 - Kirsten, Samantha, and Molly - and they had just added Felicity. Kirsten was the more popular one at school and me always having to be a little different, I wanted Samantha instead - I loved her Victorian style and stories! My parents got her for me for Christmas one year and I was thrilled!

Another memorable gift was the year I got my stereo in 5th grade. We actually have amusing video footage of this one as my dad (or "Santa" to my sister) played a prank on me with it. I had opened all my gifts and it wasn't there, despite me not having opened a "big" present yet (my parents would get us 1 big, more expensive present that we really wanted each year). As we opened presents in the living room, my parents told me to go retrieve the stockings that hung on the mantle between the kitchen and family room. I didn't really want to, but I did anyway and I think my sis followed. As we went to go get them, we both noticed a big large box wrapped in the middle of the family room. I knew that had to be my big present, but my sis, being the little 3 year old she was at the time, insisted it was hers. My dad, who wrapped it, had forgotten to put a gift tag on it, which only led to the feud as my sister insisted it was her present despite what anyone told her. She then began to fight with me over opening it, getting all upset when my parents told her to let me do it. I unwrapped it and sure enough, it was a box with the stereo I wanted on it. I opened it up though and there was an older junk radio in the box! My dad thought it was funny - turns out he hid the actual stereo somewhere else in the house! lol...

What memorable Christmas gifts have you gotten over the years?