Let’s have some fun today – I’ve mentioned before out intentions to keep it simple this Christmas for myself and my family – we’ve certainly had enough stress to last us a long time. In the meanwhile, I was thinking about all the Christmases when I was growing up and all the toys that were hot and not. One of my favorite items over the year was the traditional etch-a-sketch – of course, which dates back to the 50s – but it’s also one of our daughter’s favorites so we were tickled when we were able to pick one up for her this year and I’m pretty sure that will tickle her no end.
Great Presents from the Past
Looking for some fun presents from the past? We’ve seen the resurgence of Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake and more – these date back to our own childhoods. Recently, at the little Toyland express that my daughter’s school is hosting, they have these little plug and play video games that can purchased that are based on the Intellivision and that just about cracked me up and it made my husband laugh too – since they are being sold for about $4, we told it would make a good present for us.
But what else is out there that dates back to our childhood?
Let’s take a trip back to 1982, when Sony debuted their Watchman – we don’t have Watchmans per se today, but we do have the portable DVD player and we can thank the Watchman for that idea. If we bounce forward to 1983, the hottest items anywhere were the Cabbage Patch Kids and yes we can still find them today, but they don’t have the popularity that they once did.
In 1985, it was Teddy Ruxpin. I was just 13 in 1985, but I remembered the Teddy Ruxpin one of the kids I babysat for had. I remember putting a rock and roll tape inside it and cracked up at the reaction. It definitely falls into the category of the kind of creepy toys, but still fun. Fast-forward to 1986 and the war between Nintendo and Sega, Nintendo offers us the Wii now – still pretty funny.
1986 is also the year that Fatherhood came out and my husband spent a lot of time the night our daughter was born quoting this novel to me and it’s just as entertaining and amusing now as it was 20 years ago. Take a hop forward 3 years to 1989 and the two top toys of the day are on my nephew’s Christmas list this year – the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Gameboy.
So maybe our ghosts of Christmas Past aren’t that far away after all…what do you remember from your childhood that your children share a similar desire for today?
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