Your most memorable Christmas toys

[mf15]

Gilbert Chemistry set before I could read.
3 speed 26" bike, American Flyer trains.
Retired industrial chemist. LOL
oldmike

 

[COcheesehead]

A pair of binoculars from Sears and I still have them.

 

[Jerry1]

A steam engine. It was fashioned after an old time tractor. You put water in it and it had a solid fuel that you lit to heat the water and create steam. It was pretty cool. As far as being a model, it was a very good replica (scaled down of course) of the old tractors. Once you got it going, that thing would go pretty long on the tank of water.

 

[Car-Guy]

I'm sure I got some real toys for Christmas but I can't remember any specifically. I asked for and started receiving hand tools each Christmas, probably before I was ten, IIRC. (Socket sets, wrenches, screwdrivers, etc, etc) I was always taking things apart, and sometimes putting them back together. I'm not sure why I liked to work with my hands at such an early age especially since my dad didn't even know how to use a hammer. (Well pretty close anyway)


I still have some of the tools I got for Christmas as a kid.

 

[DuluthGA]

Electro shot shooting gallery by Marx. I got one in late 60’s. Bought one off eBay a few years ago to play with the grandkids

 

[aja8888]

Staying up late at night as a teenager on Christmas eve in the 1950's and assembling a dollhouse for my young sister. It was all steel and tabs to bend everywhere and my Dad was not up to the task. She loved it!

I got a pump up air rifle that shot round corks.

 

[GrayHare]

The slot car set was lots of fun even if it was finicky with cars stopped at dead spots. Never received the table top hockey game I wanted, the one with the long rods that moved and spun the players, so I got myself one decades later, played awhile, then gave it away to some kids.

 

[Accidental Retiree]

I was a tomboy, and one of the most memorable toys I got for Christmas was a Class A racing set, the one with the cars powered by mainsprings that you wound up with a "Pitstop" winder.

Another was a set of rollerskates, the kind with metal wheels that you strapped on to your shoes. Dad told me to watch out with them, they'd go like greased lightening.

I was the only girl I knew who never requested or received anything Barbie.

What great toys do you remember getting for Christmas?

I made up for the Barbies you didn’t get. That was always my doll of choice. My favorite ones came for Christmas 1966, and I still have 3-1/2 of the 4-doll set; Skipper lost her head to a beagle pup one year when I took them out at Christmas to display them. ?

 

[Ronstar]

Lionel train in 1957. I still have it displayed on a shelf.

 

[W2R]

Christmas, 1952, age four and a half. Santa gave me a hard plastic doll with long blond hair in two braids. Her eyes could open and shut. Either I named her Mary Jane, or else that was the name the manufacturer gave to that model of doll.

Mary Jane was the very first dollie that I was allowed to play with, and I loved that doll so much! I took her everywhere and even made up imaginary stories about how she was alive, and our adventures together.

My mother made Mary Jane and me matching kilts out of our family tartan, that you can see in the attached photo from 1953.

Years later, when Barbie dolls first became available, I bought one. But she could never be as dear to me as sweet Mary Jane.

 

[DrRoy]

Creepy Crawlers and Tinkertoys.

 

[Winemaker]

Fort Apache and Lincoln Logs.

 

[Toast]

Lincoln Logs and an Easy Bake Oven

 

[Venturer]

But the most memorable Christmas gift I ever got; I WASN'T given... I still get emotional thinking about it.

I was 13, and we gotten the Ward's Christmas catalog. On the back cover was a blue denim 10 speed bicycle, $150. Us 3 boys got to mark everything we wanted, and just see what Santa brought... The ONLY thing I marked was that bike. On Christmas morning, my anticipated joy turned to heart break as there was no bike.
Several weeks later my Stepfather asked me if I had really wanted that bike... I said Yes... Then he said he would help me get it.... I was amazed....Then he hands me a piece of paper with 2 phone numbers... Jobs to shovel snow... That got me other shoveling jobs. He would drive me around to them. By the end of April as my birthday approached, I was $20 short of having enough money for the bike. Him and Ma took me to the Wards catalos store, and chipped in the other $20 as my Birthday gift, And then made me assemble the bike.....
As much as I loved that bike, It was the lesson of working to get what you want was the best gift I have ever received.

Thanks for this memory as it made me remember one simalar. Most of the kids around my neighborhood had the hot rod bikes with the "banana" seats. My stepdad worked for a car dealership and got an old 26 inch bike that he then sanded and painted metaflake red in the shop there. He put a set of the high handlebars and a banana seat as well as chrome 1/2 fenders. Best gift ever,I was the envy of the neighborhood and rode that bike all the way into my teen years since It was big enough that I didn't out grow it.

 

[ksr]

Christmas, 1952, age four and a half. Santa gave me a hard plastic doll with long blond hair in two braids. Her eyes could open and shut. Either I named her Mary Jane, or else that was the name the manufacturer gave to that model of doll.

Mary Jane was the very first dollie that I was allowed to play with, and I loved that doll so much! I took her everywhere and even made up imaginary stories about how she was alive, and our adventures together.

My mother made Mary Jane and me matching kilts out of our family tartan, that you can see in the attached photo from 1953.

Years later, when Barbie dolls first became available, I bought one. But she could never be as dear to me as sweet Mary Jane.

W2R, I love the matching kilts and the photo! Do you still have Mary Jane?

 

[freedomatlast]

I asked for and started receiving hand tools each Christmas, probably before I was ten, IIRC. (Socket sets, wrenches, screwdrivers, etc, etc) I was always taking things apart, and sometimes putting them back together. I'm not sure why I liked to work with my hands at such an early age especially since my dad didn't even know how to use a hammer. (Well pretty close anyway)


I still have some of the tools I got for Christmas as a kid.

Exactly the same here, Car-Guy. I still have an SK socket set I got as a gift during the 70s that I still use frequently. My dad also didn't understand why I wanted tools and why I liked taking things apart to see how they worked, as he had zero mechanical interest or ability.

 

[Midpack]

Hard to say there were several***, but the one that first came to mind was a Scalextric slot car set. Not mine, but example below.

*** Erector set, Lincoln Logs, American Bricks, many Dinky Toys.

 

[W2R]

W2R, I love the matching kilts and the photo! Do you still have Mary Jane?

I gave her to my grown daughter a couple of decades ago, and so I guess Mary Jane is probably still in the family.

 

[FlaMariner]

Lionel Train....Santa brought the train set and a layout board with the tracks already laid....I've been a railfan ever since! I think I was 6.

 

[pacergal]

Oh, how all 4 of us kids loved circling things in the Sears Christmas catalog!

Some things I remember over the years:
Stuffed dog toy that came with comb/brush
Chatty Cathy doll, Barbie doll and bedroom set
Schwinn bike with basket
metal roller skates (and key!), the kind that hooked onto the bottom of your shoe--better crank them tight!
at 13, I got a birthstone and pearl ring. It was all I wanted and was expensive for my folks at the time.

 

[O2Bfree]

Oh, how all 4 of us kids loved circling things in the Sears Christmas catalog!

We also had the Jafco catalog. There was a store in my town.

 

[O2Bfree]

I didn't know it at the time, but a Christmas gift I got when I was 16 became a favorite as I got older: a Hamilton Beach Hot Air Popcorn Popper. I still use it to make popcorn several times a week.

 

[target2019]

Mr. Machine. Lincoln Logs.

 

[REWahoo]

...

 

[jldavid47]

I had two favorites. When I was 6 I got a second hand train set (I didn't care it was second hand - I loved it and my parents didn't have a lot of money at the time). The next year I got a Jimmy Jet. I played with that thing constantly for at least a year. Here's a picture of one. People still resell these things on eBay.