For those who celebrate such things, today is Christmas Eve, traditionally a time for a last little bit of guilt tripping to keep the kids well-behaved and possibly some eggnog, but for me, the last several Christmas Eves have been spent wondering if I got the right gifts for my family. Now that I have a child of my own, I have to wonder what she will say was her most beloved gift of all time when she grows up and gets her own podcast. When I was a kid, the thing I wished for most vacillated between super-powers like everyone in Riverdale had and my own space-craft, neither of which arrived until my early twenties, but I still remember the year that I got my own full set of silverware fondly (and whatever fat jokes you’re constructing right now are probably completely justifiable.) In fact, with one major exception that you’ll hear about on the next Top Five, I don’t really recall ever being terribly disappointed by the gifts I had recieved.
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) sees you when you’re sleeping, and suggests that you might want to see a specialist, asking: What gift did you always want but never get for Christmas/Chanukkah/ Festivus/Mulch?
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I really wanted one of those gigantic Alien figures, but never got one.
To be Santa
A Green Lantern power battery prop tops my list (it has been on my Christmas and Birthday lists every year since the first one came out in the mid/late 90’s).
When it came to gifts from most of my family growing up, it always seemed like no thought was put in to what they got me other than “We’re shopping for a girl”. As a kid I wanted GI Joe, TMNT, Transformers, etc. but got MLP, Barbie and all that “girl stuff”. I’d ask for jeans, t-shirts and sneakers, I’d get dresses and heels (I NEVER wear heels!). When I was 15 or 16, I was able to get 5 pairs of cheap jeans and 3 t-shirts from taking back ONE dress, so it always made me wonder why they would spend so much on something they knew I’d never wear (I prefer cheap and comfortable over fancy or fashionable).
a (wait for It) official Red Ryder Carbine-Action 200 shot Range-Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time.
You’ll shoot your eye out, kid.
I was really hoping someone would finish that.
Every year, around October, my parents would bring home the big Christmas edition of the Sears Roebuck catalog and have us kids spend the next few months pouring through it and marking what gifts we wanted. Why my parents did this remains a mystery because, invariably, they never once bought anything out of the catalog we indicated we wanted, but that’s another question altogether.
There were several things. Back when Shawn Connery was still James Bond, corgi put out a diecast Austin Martin that had opening doors, the pop-up bullet proof shield, etc. which I wanted and never got (and I still haven’t managed to find one).
When Lost in Space was on TV, they had a foot high toy of the robot which I wanted, too.
But the thing I regret most was that they had a line of James Bond inspired toys, like a cigarette case with fake cigarettes that opened up to reveal a hidden radio, a briefcase full of spy gadgets, etc.
In 1964, Milton Bradley put out a Camp Grenanda board game where you pushed a bus around the board and when the radiator fell off the bus, you had to do whatever camp-themed nonsense was printed in that space. One of my friends got the game and it was hilarious and a lot of fun, but they only produced it for one year. I asked for it the next Christmas but by then it was already out of production and impossible to find.
However, we did get some wonderful game and toys. My favorites were a cannister of American Bricks, the precursor to Legos, which where snap together red plastic bricks you could make buildings out of. There were white plastic doors and window which would hinge open and closed, and green plastic shingle panels that snapped together. Had a lot of fun with those!
When Legos came along, those were the most popular gift of all time – and in those days there weren’t sets that built into specific things – just a box of blocks. We’d not only build building, ships, etc. out of the things, we’d make Star Trek communicators and phasers and run around playing Star Trek.
My brother had an American Flyer train set. We used to set it up and use my little brother’s blocks to make barricades to smash the train through. We also made little people out of Klean Klay (a plastic clay that never hardened) and put them on the tracks with gruesome results.
Klean Klay itself was a toy whose play value far exceeded its cheap price. I used to have endless hours of fun playing with that stuff!
“James Bond, corgi put out a diecast Austin Martin”
I had the matchbox version of this I still remember saving up my pocket money to pay the princely sum of 99p. I may still have it somewhere although the little plastic man the ejector seat fired is long gone.
The only gift I ever really wanted but never got was an x-wing.