[Kitty]

With Christmas just around the corner there are hundreds of commercials for toys being aired right now.

This got me thinking of some of the toys I used to have as a child. They were nothing like the ones being advertised!

I used to wish for a big box of crayons. The kind with the sharpener in the box. That was super special! Now.....they have Crayola comic books where you can make yourself a character along with Spiderman or whoever the hero is in that particular story.

How any Barbie dolls are there now? Too many to count.

What ever happened to Silly Putty? The Etch-a-Sketch? Spirograph? 45 records?

Remember the cards you'd get from Grandparents where they were filled with coins. Dimes and nickles in little pre-cut slits on the card. Oh, I thought those were fantastic.

I remember one Christmas getting a Sit 'n Spin. I wore that thing out!

And puzzles. Whatever happened to having a big jigsaw puzzle going for a week on the dining room table?

What do you remember from Christmas' past?

[mrsD]

You like nostalgia.... you must visit the Vermont Country store site:

http://www.vermontcountrystore.com/s..._Treats/100623

We just received a catalog from a place with the most complex toys you've every seen! OMG!

I'll post tomorrow the name so you can look it up, but it is upstairs and I'm not going up there yet! (kind of a pain day, sorry). Kids today are SOOOOO sophisicated...is it painful to see what they are using! Crayons? Hey, Crayola has glow in the dark ones, and invisible ones and whatnot!
http://www.crayola.com/products/index.cfm?n_id=3

My art history, and cravings would long for the big box of 64 crayons, and sniff them as I opened it, if I received one, that is!
Next to the aroma of crayons is certain types of paper! I can almost smell them now! LOL

[Kitty]

LOVE the Vermont Store. I bet B2Y does, too!!

[mrsD]

Hubby was kind enough to go up there to find this next to my side of the bed:

http://www.hearthsong.com/

What an industry!

Myself? I'd love the new stuffies available now... sigh.

[karilann]

Believe it or not, I thought the game OPERATION was wayyyy coool when I was little. It was fun putting puzzles together as a family also.


My daughter, now 27, had her favorite when she was little: Teddy Ruxpin and he greatly helped her learn to read. There is a favorite in every generation!

My mother loved a deck of cards.......loved to play Solitaire. Go figure!

My father (growing up in the Depression) said he was lucky to get an orange and a bag of peanuts. Loved oranges and peanuts until the day he died.

[doydie]

We didn't have much money at all! Mom wold make us a dress and then out of the leftovers make one for our doll. I remember Dad let us girl 'help' him cut some wood for some city buildings for my younger brothers. Then Mom let us draw in the windows, doors, etc. I have that set and my grand daughters play with it. Both of my brothers had sons. One of them is the young man that attempted suicide. He has a son but I doubt he will ever see him. My other brother has a baby daughter. That set of blocks might be a nice gift for her some day. One of our favorite things to play with was going through the outdated Sears catalogue and making paper dolls and furnishing a home for them. Our biggest toy was Herman. My sister and I were sure we were going to be nurses, only I made it. But Dad made us an adult size man out of scrap wood. It had hinged joints and everything. Mom made the clothes and stuffed them. We picked berries for pills for him, bandaged all his ailments. We had a delipared garage and that was out hospital. We would both sit in out favorite tree and dream of going to Africa and being nurses together. We also played in a big wash bucket that Mom put the water in after doing laundry. I don't think kids know how to play like we did. We had a piano and when I was in the 5th grade got a B/W tv.

[kicker]

Walnuts and Slinkies in our stockings. I got Johnny West and Chief Cherokee one year (never a Barbie kid) and at 56 I still have Johnny's hat on my old Little Kiddles I have in a box somewhere.

[kicker]

You know when I die, my kids will just heave that stuff that in the dumpster they'll have to rent. And what could they do with the old Bambeger's box (I colored in the thru history various figures on it with my sister) full of clothespin dolls I made. There's more than 50 in there. I hope I leave tears, laughter and amazement to them that clean-up day. The stuff they'll find! Wish I could be here.