Christmas Gifts I Received As a Kid – IOTW Report

Christmas Gifts I Received As a Kid

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How about you?

70 Comments on Christmas Gifts I Received As a Kid

  1. A pink toy washing machine. There was a crank in back that made the agitators go back and forth. It also had those rollers on top that you would run the clothes through to squeeze out the water.

    Dang, does that ever date me!

    https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Toy+Wringer+Washing+Machine&view=detailv2&&id=F40ED36274617DA7B375E0225E3D49AC30940576&selectedIndex=11&ccid=9uLzeEP%2f&simid=607999780779524396&thid=OIP.Mf6e2f37843ffd16e0f7fc2484e646bbbo0&ajaxhist=0

  2. I had a Lionel train set to die for and every year, I got more tracks, overpasses, towns, and all kinds of different train cars. I left it all boxed up when I left home and mom gave it away.

  3. I got a lot of music and books (which I asked for) as a teenager, and when younger remember Barbie dolls,clothes and games. LOL one was Ants in the Pants, the plastic ants of which would later be aided (older brother) to leap out my second story bedroom window. I don’t remember so many gifts, but I did get much of what I asked for.

    By the way, there’s a certain smell to Christmas, which I detected on a pair of Captain America pajamas I was wrapping the other day. Oh, memories!

  4. Daisy BB gun, JC Higgins 3-speed bike, new puppy, mechanical table hockey, record player, matching six-shooters, ukulele, transistor radio – – and that was all in one year!

  5. Every Christmas we would set up the electric trains around the tree and get out the Aurora car sets out too.
    I loved the smell of the electric cars and trains.
    Good times.

    I still have my favorite toy put away, a Lost In Space Robot.
    The all red version. They had a mix of blue and black too.
    I believe it took three D batteries to light up and roll.

  6. My sister and I received our first Barbie dolls in the early 60s. My mother and grandmother made all the clothes, including tiny sweaters and coats that my mom knit herself. Grandma made hats, muffs and stoles with fake fur and the hats came complete with little pieces of face netting. Everything was stored in large plastic doll wardrobes. I have never been more thrilled with any gift in my life and have every single piece to this day– although I can’t find the doll! I love looking at all those late 50s styles. : )

  7. Record Albums
    John Gnagy “Learn to Draw” set (I still can’t)
    Chemistry Set
    Revell Model kits: (this was a big hobby for years with neighborhood friends, had a place set up in our basements to hang out and build models)
    GI Joe stuff
    Hot Wheel and Johnny Lightning cars and tracks
    Lionel trains and accessories

  8. Mom saved throughout the year and stuffed dollars in envelopes and kept a ledger for Christmas year to year to make sure each of us 4 kids were treated equally, with no child receiving more than the other.

    I found the ledger after Mom and Dad passed.
    With the annual socks, underwear and shoes, in 1959 I received a red and white Scwhinn Hornet. It was meager times, knowing Mom and Dad paid $60 dollars for the bike humbles me yet today.

  9. I remember the educational stuff best. The chemistry set.
    http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/311370257084-0-1/s-l1000.jpg

    A Think-A-Tron
    great fun until you had all the answers memorized
    https://youtu.be/kvQDsaeeISo
    .
    A box of rocks which I loved. There were all sorts of other do-dads in it and a small tumbler for polishing
    http://thumbs.picclick.com/00/s/MTE5OVgxNTk5/z/Lh4AAOSwepJXUbIh/$/Vintage-Lafayette-Scientific-Hobby-Kit-Mineral-Collection-99-7155-7156-_1.jpg

    The best ever was a fabric case that contained every size and type of knitting needle, cable needles, counters, etc. I remember going coo coo for cocoa puffs over that.

    As a teen a lighted Clairol make-up mirror that finally died after 40+ years and Yardley, lots of Yardley because I wanted to be Jean Shrimpton when I grew up.

  10. At 13 a real MICROSCOPE, had ditch water and who knows what crap growing in containers all over my bedroom! I put drawings of everything I saw in a notebook. A regular Robert Hooke don’t cha know..

  11. When I was very little, it was mainly resale baby dolls and stuffed farm animals, I was upgraded to barbie and a big plastic (quality, also resale) doll house when I turned 5. Now THAT was a Christmas I never forgot. 🙂

  12. “Lost In Space Robot”
    I had a silver one.

    Over my childhood years I’ve gotten Incredible Edibles, Green Ghost, Mouse Trap, Operation, glow-in-the-dark Glop, Day-Glo paints and poster boards, Erector set, a huge model of Apollo 11, portable Cassette Player/Recorder, Schwinn bike (banana seat, etc.), a tie……..a friggin tie……, Revelle funny-car models, the really big Revelle model of The Red Baron trike with the iron cross helmet, and that’s all I can think of for now.

  13. Another sweet memory that I have is that we never had much money when I was a kid, so my mother used to do this trick to make sure that my four older brothers, my little sister, and I got nice presents @ Christmas:
    Starting in October, she’d take any extra money we had every paycheck (max a couple 100, if that) and would buy 100 dollar barbie dolls at toysrus, then starting in November she’d start laying away the toys she actually wanted to get, then a couple of days before Christmas Day, she and my dad would head over to toysrus, return around 500 dollars worth of barbies, and buy the Christmas presents. It was always exciting because mom and dad would come home with big toysrus bags, and us kids were none the wiser. I never worried about Christmas, even when we had powdered milk.

  14. For several years, my dad and I would go through the Edmund Scientific catalog and he’d let me pick out my main Christmas present. Wonderful! I still have my 5 lb. Alnico magnet that can lift 125 lbs. if set up right. It’s stored on the end of my tool chest. I just used it a week or so ago to look for Mrs. Uncle’s pruning shears that she had dropped in a messy and hard to get at place. I tied a rope to the magnet and in about 90 seconds: SUCCESS!

  15. When I was eight and my brother was ten, our grandma gave us each a small hunting knife. She previously gave us socks and underwear. I’ll never forget my brother’s thank you note: Dear Grammy, thank you for the hunting knife. I only needed five stitches.

  16. I recall the dangerous toys. Lawn darts. A wood burning set. Model tanks that shot projectiles, along with rifle replicas that also shot projectiles. BB guns. Sling shots. Knives. Chemistry set with alcohol burner.

    My folks weren’t violent or vicious – they just got us stuff we would like. But our family Christmas home movies showing us boys playing with our toys are the stuff of progressive nightmares.

  17. My first and real Christmas was when I was 5 and finally got out of the orphanage and came here to America. I couldn’t speak English (im german) and when I got a tin canister of Lincoln logs I didn’t know what they were so I threw them in the fire place because they looked like logs. I didn’t get much after that.

  18. My mom made lots of toys for us. She designed these hideous/adorable teddy bears, and made dolls for us girls. She made those horse-heads on broomsticks too.
    But my favorite was the Ella and Andy Baby Mouse Treehouse. It cost under $7.00 in ’67 or ’68, and was only made one year. A few years ago I got real nostalgic for that Treehouse, and so I found one on Ebay, and my husband bid on it for me for a Valentines Day gift – it went over $400., but he got it for me anyway. It is not in perfect condition, but in my eyes it is beautiful. (I even decorate it for Christmas,tiny tree, tiny stockings and even a tiny The Night Before Christmas book, LOL)

  19. My mom worked wonders on a budget. She made beautiful decorations, baking for a month, omg, bourbon balls, peanut butter roll, chocolate covered cherries, hard candies of every flavor (burnt he fingers and the house reeked of flavored oils), and more.

    Best Christmas gifts – 3 girls in our family.
    Our elderly neighbors gave us 3 wigs (they were molded plastic thingys, shaped to our head, blonde, brunette and red head – we gave the red to our youngest sister, never seen anything like them before or since). We gave the red wig to the youngest sister.

    We also got plastic jewelry high heels to complete the ensemble (my poor dad).

    Mom bought the newest thing – a cassette tape player and a tape of The Kinks. We didn’t know who the Kinks were, but guess I had a pretty cool mom.

    Mom also would sew barbie doll outfits every Christmas.
    She was a true renaissance woman, raised 3 daughters, worked outside the home (State Policeman salary didn’t go far in those days), and made a wonderful loving home. I miss her terribly.

  20. @Engelburka Engelburka – My condolences. I imagine I’ll be missing mine before very long. She just turned 97, still hanging in there but slowing down.

    But how cool is a mom who brings home a Kinks tape! That was a group rather ahead of their time, especially their hit song Lola.

  21. Incredible Edibles tasted like crap, I remember that. The Aurora slot cars we got about 1964 or 65 were the coolest. And I did get a Daisy BB gun for Christmas about that same time. We had an indoor gun range in our basement set up for BB guns. And the best Christmas gift my parents ever bought for my wife and I was a La Creuset set of French cooking ware. I still use it.

  22. My father gave me a Hot Wheels set. Meh. My older brother got the stupid football game at the top that just vibrated. I tried to give the present to one of my brother’s friend, but he wasn’t interested. The next year my mom gave me a real gift. An EZ Bake Oven. I knew he liked pizza, so I put some ketchup and seasonings and mozzarella cheese on an English muffin. Baked it up real nice. He enjoyed it so much, he tickled me. That was the real present. Happy Holidays for 2016 because 2017 won’t be so happy.

  23. Nobody has better stories about getting Christmas gifts as a kid than Fur. That smiley face watch has a hilarious story attached to it. There’s also one about him and his family all together around the Christmas tree exchanging gifts. His parents are paying close attention as a horrified Fur unwraps a porno video given to him by his older brother. Hilarious!

  24. How I found out there was no Santa: I was unwrapping gifts on Christmas morning and I must have said something about being grateful to Santa. My father got really pissed off and blurted out “I’m tired of spending money on presents and that fat bastard gets all the credit!!!”

  25. I think I got those water rockets a few years in a row. Dad probably bought a crate full in Tijuana.

    Got a late start today, worked my ass off all day.

    Good night and Merry Christmas to all!

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