Favorite Christmas Gifts From My Childhood

While it gets closer and closer to Christmas, I've been getting pretty nostalgic. I began to remember all the great gifts I got as a kid, though buying them was no easy task for my parents since during that time they didn't exactly have a lot of money. I was surprised at the difficulty in finding images of some of these toys considering the scope of the internet and how trendy nostalgia is lately. The list begins around the time I was three which was the earliest Christmas I can remember:

Hess Fire Truck (1989)
Hess gas stations have been releasing a holiday truck every year for the past forty-five years and they don't disappoint. My three year old self was entranced by the myriad of lights and siren noises this truck made. It was one of my all-time favorite toy trucks as a kid. Sadly I don't know what happened to it over the years. Perhaps it's in a box with the ladder attachment broken off. Though they were attractive, Hess trucks weren't exactly the most durable.

 

Micro Machines Super City Toolbox and Super Van City (1991/ 1993)

Ask anyone around my age about "Micro Machines" and the first thing they'll probably remember were the TV commercials featuring fast-talking and nearly incomprehensible pitchman John Moschitta, Jr., but my fondest memories of these miniscule N-scale vehicles were the ridiculously detailed playsets that were around during the late-80s and early-90s. I still have some of those sets in differing condition levels. But the most memorable playsets were the ones disguised as something inconspicuous on the outside, like the toolbox and the van, but when you opened them a miniature metropolis would be there inside when you opened it. I would play with these for hours! My memories of the Super City Toolbox and super Van City got fuzzy over the years and i mistook one for the other before I wrote this. Maybe it's because I'd link both playsets together... Sadly, sometime in the late-90s Hasbro bought out Galoob (the company that made Micro Machines) and phased the toy line out. I'm surprised they managed to last as long as they did without being slapped with lawsuits because some kid swallowed them.

Nintendo Game Boy (1993)

Whenever my sister and I wanted to play a video game, my mom would get us those Tiger Electronics games that were usually tied in with some popular movie or TV show (I clearly remembering having ones such as The Flintstones, Chip'n Dale Rescue Rangers, and Home Alone 2) where crude black figures would appear over a static LCD screen background. When my sister and I received Game Boys for Christmas 1993, it was the first time we got to play a cartridge-based gaming system and we were excited. They would become esstential on any long car rides when I'd spend hours playing Dr. Mario, Kirby's Dream World, and Super Mario World. I still have these old "bricks" stored away in a cabinet somewhere though the back panels over the battery case has fallen off of them.


I'm sure many other people my age have similar memorable Christmas gifts. There were other great gifts but I don't remember the time I got them as well as I did these and remember the times I had afterwards playing with them. There might be more yuletide trips down memory lane in store, stay tuned!