Have you seen the new commercials where a little kid gets the one super-duper, most fabulous, equivalent-of-Ralphie’s-Red-Ryder-BB-Gun present on Christmas morning, then it segues to the kid as an adult, getting a new car? And that becomes the best gift ever?
It got me thinking. Not the new car bit. I’d be really annoyed if I got a new car for Christmas, because, with our finances, it would come with a hefty car payment, which would not make me happy.
But I definitely like looking back on my childhood and trying to remember that one gift that really threw me into shocked squeals of delight.
It didn’t take much thinking. No doubt about what my # 1 was…
The Barbie Country Camper
I was a kid of the seventies, when Barbie truly reigned supreme. Back then, unlike when my kids were young, you only had one main Barbie, and, if you were lucky, possibly a Skipper or a Ken to go with it. A kid who had more than three Barbies was obviously from the rich side of town. A kid who had more than five Barbies and all the cool accoutrements that went with her must have been royalty.
Well, let me tell you, I saw the Barbie Country Camper commercial and fell into instant and immediate lust. The kind my Blaze heroines fall into when they first see the glistening pecs, washboard abs, gleaming eyes and wicked smiles on my heroes. I saw the glistening plastic windshield, the washboard indentations in the tires, the gleaming plastic trim and the wicked cool vinyl sides, one of which slid completely off, and the back of which popped down for use for those summer camp-out barbecues, and I was a goner.
I begged. I hinted. I wrote lists with lots of reasons why I should get my most heartfelt desire. I was especially good whenever there were birds in the vicinity (I grew up being told that every bird in the sky worked for Santa Claus—they were always watching, and if you were bad, they’d fly to the North Pole and tattle on you! I hated stupid birds.) But despite all that, I was honestly not sure whether I’d actually get one, and was convinced I’d be the laughingstock of the street, the only girl having to make-do with a shoe box with glued-on cardboard wheels for those exciting Barbie camping trips.
Waking up on Christmas morning and seeing the camper parked in front of my toy pile under the tree in 1971 was one of the most thrilling moments of my childhood. I am fairly certain I cried. And I know I ignored everything else I got that year. I played with that thing until it fell apart, driving over miles of rugged terrain in the back yard so Barbie, Skipper and Ken could go on camp-outs in Arizona desert, or the Florida Everglades where alligators were around every corner. And usually Ken would save Barbie from the rattlesnakes or the alligators and dumb Skipper would get eaten by them so Barbie and Ken could be completely alone in the camper…
Good grief. I guess I was born to do this job.
Anyway, the point of all this nostalgia, aside from making me smile at the memories, is to find out a little more about everybody else’s “best Christmas gift ever.” Did you have one? Do you remember it? What was it—and how old were you when you got it?
I know it’s a few weeks until Christmas, but I can’t help it. I’m soooo excited. No Barbie Country Camper under the tree for me this year, I’m quite sure, but I can think of one or two things I’m really hoping Santa will slip into my stocking.
PS: Can you believe it? When I went looking for a jpeg of the country camper, I found the actual commercial on YouTube! Walk down memory lane with me…
Leslie Kelly used to say she wanted to be a doctor when she grew up, but then she discovered Nancy Drew books. Being a flashlight-under-the-covers-nose-in-book reader throughout her childhood, she couldn’t think of anything else she’d rather do as an adult than continue to lose herself in fictional stories. Her real life marriage of 20 years to the man of her dreams is a constant reinforcement that happily-ever-afters really can happen…and that they’re worth writing about. Living in Maryland, Leslie spends her non-writing time laughing a lot with the above-mentioned romance hero and their three daughters. Though an author of more than thirty sexy, contemporary comedies, she has recently branched out to write dark romantic suspense under the pseudonym Leslie Parrish.
Destiny
Dirty Little Secrets
Once Upon A Valentine
Through The Night
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Wow, yeah, that definitely brings back memories. I was born in the 70′s so I caught the end of the Barbie crazed era, and that’s what it was all about for me at Christmas. Well, that and a horse, but I never found one of those under the tree.
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As a kid, Xmas was always fairly laid back when it came to presents. My parents were the type who would try and buy the cool or “it” present of the season- but failed miserable as they would go for something “like” the cool thing. I would rather they just bought me books and clothes. Especially the clothes since they weren’t hand me downs. We never had much.
Now, hubby and I buy ourselves what we want, so Xmas presents tend not to be a surprise, but at least we get what we would like and don’t rely on someone else to do it for us.
I have more fun shopping for presents for others- and I have gotten very good at it. Seldom is anyting I buy returned- and I know that they use them. Maybe it’s because my holiday was usually disappointing that I try hard to make sure someone else’s isn’t.
Maybe I should have a job as a personal shopper? Sounds like a dream come true to me!!
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I had the camper, too! Seeing the commercial brought back WEIRD memories – I could feel the tent and the table!
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My mom always made sure Christmas was really big for us. She would pretty much make sure we got everything on our list by getting other family member to buy what my parents couldn’t or didn’t. I have 3 great gifts that really stand out. One year(I think I was 6) I got a “Green Machine”, which was sort of like a big wheel, only you had two bars instead of a steering wheel. If you were going really fast, you could throw the two bars in different directions and turn a circle. When I was 8 I got My Friend Jenny to go with My Friend Mandy and really pretty bunk beds for my dolls. The year of the Cabbage Patch dolls(1983) I had asked for one, but my mom had said there was pretty much no way they could find one. On Christmas morning, I not only got my doll, but clothes to go with her. My Cabbage Patch doll is even more special as that was our last Christmas with my mom and my last gift from her. I still have it to this day.
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I cannot remember any particular present. I think that’s a bad sign. I know I had the Barbie plane and I must have wanted it to get something that big!
I owed one Barbie (Malibu), a Skipper and a Ken with a mustache and beard you could take off. That’s it. Barbie rarely “ended up” with Ken, though. She almost always sneaked off with Batman (one of my brother’s action figures) who was shorter than her, but decidedly more exciting. This does explain a lot about my future profession!
Yeah, nowadays all the little girls have a gazillion Barbies. My daughter has over 40, I’m sure. They’re so much cheaper now, I guess. (Or we’re more indulgent?) Only two have lost their heads and all are dressed. At least my daughter takes care of them.
Her dream gift this year is a video game. Not a system, just a game. I’m getting off easy, I think!
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I can’t believe they have that commercial on Youtube!!! We’re the same age, so I was right there with you on the Barbie camper. I also had the Barbie Townhouse. But my very favorite present was one that promised great things but never did work!!
Looking back on it now I completely understand the physchology behind it (and why I’m still miffed that it didn’t work! lol) I grew up on a farm and had no other children around to play with. There was a new toy called Baby Catch-a-ball and it looked so cool!! She was a standing doll that would throw a ball to you, then would catch it when you threw it back to her. That dumb doll couldn’t catch, even when you gently placed the ball in her arms!
I think we took it back three different times and finlly gave up on getting one that would actually work.
As for Christmas now. I’ve already gotten my present. :giggler I work on a laptop and the little screen (which is great for portability) is a bee-yotch to try to read from all day. So hubby got me a 19″ monitor that is so amazing!! And why wait for Christmas when I needed it a month ago? Other than that, just a few books (which I’ve already picked up myself).
Have a great day, everyone!!
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The best gift I ever received was a portable record player. The kind that looked like a mini suitecase. I don’t remember if it was a Christmas gift or a birthday gift. But I used that thing forever!!!
I remember one year we had a fundraiser at school selling books and records (my two favorite things, even back then). I don’t remember exactly how old I was, but I know I wasn’t 10 yet. My mom let me order two records (the Village People and Donny & Marie). When they arrived, she hid them. Her plan was that I’d forget and she’d wrap them and put them under the Christmas tree. But I found them. I still have those two records (and a whole lot more!).
I also remember getting games on several different Christmases…Trouble, Headache, perfection and superfection. I loved those games. My mom enjoyed playing Trouble and Headache with me. Those games were played and played, and eventually were gone again from wear and tear.
That was in the 70′s. In the 90′s my mom bought Trouble again, for the “house.” My sister and I still lived at home. We wanted Headache, but it was now where to be found.
As a teenager, the best Christmas presents were clothes. Along with my passion for music and books, came a passion for clothes, shoes, purses and earrings…after all, I was a teenager in the 80′s.
This year I had certain collections of dvd’s on the top of my Christmas list, but the other day someone told me about Apple TV and now I’m wondering if it’s worth buying any more dvd’s. Technology just keeps changing and I have a hard time keeping up with it. I have boxes VHS, and just as I’m building the dvd’s, wait…here’s something else… :hairpull
Debbie
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I forgot one other fabulous gift…in the 80′s, my little suitecase record player was replaced by a one piece system that played records, had radio, and two cassette players. At that stage in my life, I couldn’t have lived without it! I still have it today.
Debbie
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What’s funny…is that brought back all of my Barbie angst. I was very lucky, my folks (and others) got me most of what I wanted, but REALLY wanted a Barbie dream house, and all I got was the wimpy town house (it wasn’t very stable and all of the papery stuff bent the first day). I didn’t have a Ken until about the last year I was into Barbies (I always had my brothers’ hand me down G.I. Joes and never had a camper, but a GI Joe action van…not really the same thing).
Julie, you are getting off easy. Count your blessings.
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Wow, you brought back some great memories, Leslie! I never had the camper, but I did have the Barbie pool and the kitchen carousel with little plates, pots & pans, and plastic food. There was a sink, dishwasher, stove, etc, and I loved that thing! :wub:
Unfortunately, my girls were never into Barbies. I tried to get them interested, but they preferred dinosaurs, legos, and Pokemon and ignored the Barbies and dolls. :giggler
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WOW that brings back memories. My favorite was the Barbie Dream House with the pull up elevator. I also had a metal doll house with the little people and furniture that I loved too. Those were the good old days.
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LOL, Janelle…I also have Pokemon, dinosaurs and Legos! Mine is an equal-opportunity toy collector, LOL! My mom says its because I painted her nursery blue and didn’t dress her in frilly dresses when she was little.
She just inherited four (put together, yeah!) Legos Star Wars ships with all the little action figures from my nephew. She’s decided to decorate her toy room in “space” but without the black walls (I have to draw the line somewhere.) And living in the space room will also be all the Barbies, My Little Ponies, and enough horses to stampede a Toys R Us.
(BTW, my nephew also gave ME his Lego’s Hogwart’s Castle. Which makes sense since I bought him nearly half the parts for various Christmas and birthday presents!)
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Wow. I had the ORIGINAL Barbie in that black and white striped bathing suit and a blond ponytail. I ended up with a Midge (her first best friend), Ken (with fuzzy hair) and Skipper. (Did I mention that I’m older than dirt?
)
The Christmas gifts I remember are the ones the DH and I got for the DD. One in particular stands out as his Christmas bonus that year didn’t come until Christmas Eve. The one present the kiddo wanted from Santa was the Barbie Mansion. (click link to see Barbie Mansion Pic I hope the coding works. If not, MY BAD! Anyway, we couldn’t afford the darn thing without the bonus. It was snowing. And icy. And Christmas Eve. He drove all over four counties and I don’t know how many stores and finally found one right before closing at a Toys R Us. It was the last one and had been on hold but the buyer never showed up. DH snatched. We finally got DD to bed. And started to work. At 5 a.m., we started using Super Glue because slot A was not holding tab B.
Normally, DD sleeps late, even on Christmas. Did she this Christmas? Noooooo. We were napping on the couch, exhausted after an all-nighter and she comes bouncing down the stairs at 6:02 a.m. Squealing. With delight. Footnote: She played with it for maybe six months. :wallbanger
Present for me? Probably the electric portable typewriter I got in Junior High. I didn’t have to write my stories in notebooks anymore. I was BIG TIME! I could TYPE them. Just like a REAL writer! And speaking of, time to get back to it while I also try to get people to help me decide what book to read next. (If they’re chosen randomly, I’ll send a new copy of the book to them.)
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I wanted the Barbie Dream House–never got it. I got 2 Barbies altogether growing up. I think she got me a stupid Skipper doll once because it was cheaper or something. GIVE ME BARBIE!!
I grew up in the 60′s. Went to high school in the 70′s. My cousin Vicki got ALL the Barbies and ALL the Barbie Dream Houses, Cars, Campers, Clothes…
Cher
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LOVE the old commercial!!
Cher
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Oh, one more thing, while Lilly was growing up and was into Barbies I got her EVERY Barbie out there including the Holiday Barbie each year plus all the Barbie accoutrements–Dream House–the works!! Yay!! I lived vicariously through her. :giggler
Cher
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I’m glad my daughter isn’t the only one, Julie. I TRIED to make my girls “girly”. I bought them dolls and dressed them in frilly dresses and made pretty hairstyles with their hair with bows and clips and headbands –until they realized what I was doing to them and put a stop to it, LOL. I really, really wanted Girly Girls, but they rebelled big time. Both of them. Neither one owns a dress (the ones I’ve bought for them languish in their closets with the tags still on them), or a purse, neither like to wear make-up, and any really nice pieces of jewelry that I might have bought them have remained tucked away in one of their dresser drawers.
On the upside, I’m sure they’ve saved me thousands of dollars in buying them all that teenage girly stuff! :giggler
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I remember some of that… I loved when I received my barbies, My little ponies, and my cabbage patch kids growing up! Ahhh to be a kid at Christmas! Happy memories!
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My most memorable presents when I was a kid were the guitar I got on my 10th birthday (I still play it), and the vanity, stool and make-up mirror by father painted and my mother made the little skirt and cushion for. The funniest one since then was sometime in my 20′s when my mother finally bought me the Mouse Trap game for Christmas. She must have been tired of me teasing her about the year as a kid when the then-outrageously priced Mouse Trap was my dream gift — and my parents bought me a much cheaper game called Trap the Rat. The only problem was, what I liked about Mouse Trap wasn’t the rodent — it was the marbles. Trap the Rat, unfortunately, had no marbles. Just little fences you used to corner the rat before the other player could move him across the board to the other side. A fun game, but no substitute for the thrills of Mouse Trap. I’m happy to say the kid in me enjoyed Mouse Trap very much when the belated gift was received, lol.
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I remember having the Barbie, Ken, Skipper and Midge but all I ever got was the cool trunk case to put everything in.
My sister on the other hand got the townhouse, 2 cars, dune buggy, camper and the airplane. LOL also most sounds like a divorce settlement.
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Most memorable Christmas gift was probably when I was 13 & we got our first television set. I grew up in Medford, OR., which is in a valley where we had no reception in those days until Medford got its own TV station—yes, one (1) station! We were thrilled, it was a gift for the whole family. I don’t remember if it was a surprise but we were thrilled. My little brother was a year old so he has never known life without TV. Can you imagine!! :giggler
My girls grew up in the 70′s (they were born in 64 & 69) they had lots of Barbie’s & I even tried making the Barbie clothes for them! A lesson in frustration as they are very tiny & a bear to try to sew! Enough to make me say :*&#! Between the two of them they had a lot of the extra Barbie toys. The youngest really liked Hot Wheels & other little cars better!
Memories! Such fun to think back!
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Oh, I’m loving hearing these stories!
I always remembered that Christmas when there was something my kids were just dying to have. They never got into the Cabbage Patch craze, but each one of them had an American Girl doll under the tree one year or another.
My oldest two also woke up to find the most sought-after toy of the season…Furby! I paid a bloody fortune for the stupid things, found them online (this was very soon after I started really using the internet, I was so proud of myself!) And I still remember going to KMart to pick up the layaway I had started at the end of the summer. They had packed it in a giant, clear bag, and as I made my way toward the exit, with a clear bag containing a TICKLE ME ELMO, I really thought I was going to get mugged right there in the store!
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We got new clothes for Christmas—hardly ever a toy.
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My M-I-L sent me this link and I just had to pass it on to all the moms in th Jungle.
Enjoy :-)
Cher
http://blogs.northlandchurch.net/2008/08/11/the-mom-song/
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Wow, I never got one of those, Leslie! I do still have our Tumblin’ Weebles Treehouse though!
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I enjoyed the commercial. I do have a favorite Christmas present ever. It came on the Christmas when I was 10.
Whenever I went to the mall with my mom when I was young, we would always walk by the jewelry store my parents got their wedding bands from and look at all the pretty jewelry. Well, that year I had spotted this cute little sapphire ring (sapphire being both mine and my mom’s birthstone). The ring was so delicate and the sapphire sat in the middle of a bow. After seeing that ring, it immediately went on my Christmas list. I even told my parents that I would be fine with only getting one present if they got me the ring but couldn’t afford anything else.
So, when Christmas morning came, and my parents started passing out gifts to my brothers, sister, and me, I kept up hope that they’d bought it. All the way until the last present was handed to me and it was a long tube, like those you’d get posters in. I was disappointed because I thought my parents hadn’t been able to get the ring and I was trying not to show it since I figured they had gotten me a poster that I had asked for. Instead, when I opened up the tube, there was a tiny little box in the middle of it that had my ring. I don’t remember if I cried, but I’m sure I shrieked and hugged my parents for giving me such a great gift.
I still wear that ring, though I had to get a little extra gold added to it since my fingers have gotten a little bigger than they were when I was 10. And it is still one of my most prized possessions.
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Wow, Leslie! My brain just can’t go back that far! It has been a really
loooong time since I was a child! LOL!
Pat Cochran
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lol that’s a fancy commercial. Leslie – what a great post! :) How fun.
Erm… Christmas presents… :X definitely not as big a craze – but for some reason a turtle tot doll comes to mind. I got to pick it out myself, so I knew I was getting it… [Santa wasn't very big in my house.]
I feel horrid, lol, but I don’t have many *big gift* memories. Oh! Maybe the NES or N64? Pretty sure those were unexpected Christmas gifts I shared with my sister. [And I've effectively dated myself.]
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So many great stories today, as well as many trips down memory lane! :wink:
I remember when Furbies were all the craze, too. My daughters HAD to have them, and somehow we managed to get them the Xmas they came out. However, Danielle played with hers once, then buried it in one of her drawers. She said the eyes creeped her out and since Furby spoke randomly, she said it was like it was possessed, because it would wake her up in the middle of the night talking!
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Wow, that brought back memories. My parents couldn’t afford the camper, but my best friend had one, so I got to play with it lots. My most prized gift was a Chatty Cathy, I can almost feel her dress and hair!! But one of my friends pulled the string too hard, and Cathy never spoke again, boo hoo.
I have two boys, so my days of playing with dolls are over, LOL
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I came home from Christmas at Grandpa and Grandma’s and there it was. A giant Barbie house complete with cardboard turkey that fit into a slot in the oven! LOL. I was in heaven.
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A couple of presentsI got as a child which I loved was a child sized Singer sewing machine. It worked and sewed all kinds of Barbie clothes. I also got a Suzie Homemaker oven. I baked and baked with that light bulb fueled oven. :freezin