Subject: Favorite Christmas toys whether you got them or not
Date: Mon Dec 2 11:56:41 2019
User: hotnurse
Message:Ok, here's a fun thread that's neither political or religious...I hope.
Date: Mon Dec 2 12:14:13 2019
User: joeygray
Message:PlusPlus: that hockey game where you slide your guys forward and backward by rods, and twirl them around to sock the puck by twirling the rods. Totally fun for The Whole Family and the fun lasted literally for years. I can remember still playing this against my brother the following Christmas while neglecting our new stuff. And playing against dad a bajillion times.
(MinusMinus: that football game where you line up a bunch of men on a metal field and then turned on the vibration to see how the play worked. Hint: everybody eventually falls over.)
Date: Mon Dec 2 12:21:50 2019
User: TNmountainman
Message:Had two of those football games, and one baseball game. Never could believe that people actually thought those were marketable and workable. On the other hand......just sold my original vibrating electrical horse racing 'game' about 3 weeks ago at an estate sale. It still worked perfectly, and was in great shape - box and all. That was the only one of those that seemed remotely viable. Still have a few of those old football players around in a drawer somewhere.
And we also had one of the hockey games you describe. Those were indeed actually fun - and lasted.
Date: Mon Dec 2 12:25:22 2019
User: outskirts
Message:Our family owned a pogo stick when I was small, in the 50s.
Date: Mon Dec 2 12:34:57 2019
User: Klepp
Message:That hockey game was awesome.
Date: Mon Dec 2 13:13:27 2019
User: TNmountainman
Message:Two of my very good friends got together and drank beer and played that game fairly seriously (well, you know.....) up into the early '90s. It may still be viable; don't know.
Date: Mon Dec 2 13:47:05 2019
User: redberet
Message:I would go with my bag of army men. If only I could of gotten that plastic Thompson submachinegun. It was kind of nice having toys that didn't need batteries.
Date: Mon Dec 2 15:30:21 2019
User: smelborp
Message:Lionel "O" gauge.
Date: Mon Dec 2 17:25:37 2019
User: Denny
Message:I remember when I was like 10 and my brother 8 we both got James Bond attache cases with these guns that would reassemble into various configurations. I was totally into Man from U.N.C.L.E. at that time and was very very excited about these. I couldn't believe my parents could afford 2 of them because they were $14.99 apiece!
Now on ebay for $750 (see link below)
Link: James Bond attache case
Date: Mon Dec 2 18:20:52 2019
User: TNmountainman
Message:That's pretty cool. Did you have that box variation? That's a weird description: "Might work here and not work when it gets to you"? I know that's probably some kind of boilerplate disclaimer.........but this is serious spy stuff here. World order (as if) could depend on things in that attaché case. But $34 shipping!?!?! Seller loses most credibility with that usary.
So Denny trained for his Mr. Softy career as a spy, huh? I can see the progression there...
Date: Mon Dec 2 19:34:17 2019
User: roo
Message:Ludo, kept my sisters and me out of mum's hair for much of the school holidays.
The kid across the road owned a pogo stick. That was fun too.
Date: Mon Dec 2 20:58:22 2019
User: Denny
Message:High shipping seems to be a pretty common gimmick on eBay these days. List the item cheap and make it up on "shipping." Buyer beware.
Date: Tue Dec 3 05:31:29 2019
User: Katya
Message:I have a walking doll - she winds up with a key and there are little wheels run by gears on the bottom of her shoes. Her feet never leave the floor, but she moves her legs back and forth as she walks. She still works after 65 years. Never seen anything similar on eBay where we often search for retro toys for the grandson.
Date: Tue Dec 3 07:33:27 2019
User: outskirts
Message:I looked up pogo sticks on the Internet and it seems they are still around. There is even extreme pogo sticking. Where have I been? I figured they were dangerous, ours was!
Date: Tue Dec 3 14:21:35 2019
User: hotnurse
Message:Our grandsons just got a pogo stick for a birthday gift. I thought about trying it but it's limit is 60 lbs.
But...I did show them that ol granny can still stand on my head (using my arms to hold me up and a pillow to cushion my noggin) but at great cost; on my descent I partially tore my rotator cuff in my shoulder. None the less, they were impressed.
Date: Tue Dec 3 18:36:55 2019
User: mrbuck
Message:Jarts.
mrbuck
Date: Tue Dec 3 19:25:37 2019
User: joeygray
Message:Gross.
Date: Tue Dec 3 22:12:44 2019
User: Dr.Bombay
Message:Hot Wheels and Legos
Date: Wed Dec 4 03:30:11 2019
User: TNmountainman
Message:Geek that I sorta am........as a kid I used to keep all kinds of 'records' of athletic feats and games played by friends and family. I've still got some of those (yes, I'm weird like that), but not the one for consecutive pogo stick jumps. But I was WAY ahead of all comers (less than 7, probably; lol) in that "event". I want to say it was something like 1500. I know it was well over 1000. We had either 2 or 3 of them, and it was kinda fun. Just a quick back-of-the-brain calculation, using something like 3/4 second per jump (just a guess, but I bet pretty close), 1500 would take 'only' about 19 minutes. Seems like that was about right, but obviously that was a long time ago. I could go up and down steps on it, and go long distances like down a sidewalk, etc.
And yes.....they *could* be dangerous. Clearly a learning curve there. And of course this was something always done on concrete. We had a couple of unicycles, too, but I didn't put much time into it, and so never got good at that. One of my brothers did, tho. And very oddly, every once in a (very) great while I'll have a dream in which I'm on one.
Date: Thu Dec 5 09:03:57 2019
User: jennieinmi
Message:I loved Marvel the Mustang! I remember my sister calling him "Marvel the mudstain" and making me cry. I still love horses, now have 3 real ones that I keep on my farm. Get along great with my sister now, too.
Date: Thu Dec 5 13:35:45 2019
User: twocats
Message:Hot wheels cars, model trains and G.I. Joe
Date: Thu Dec 5 14:11:45 2019
User: outskirts
Message:In our family it was a thing to not spend a lot on gifts! I loved my etch-a-sketch!
Date: Thu Dec 5 15:26:18 2019
User: nancylou
Message:Hot Wheels. I have over 200 of them.
Date: Thu Dec 5 16:02:03 2019
User: outskirts
Message:Good memories of hula hooping to Elvis the same time we had a pogo stick, the 50s. I was 4-5. Never to this day could i do either one, but still try to crack the hula hoop code. Good memories of popcorn balls.
.shocked face imogee @ TN's last post
wondering if TN has hula hoop stats
Date: Thu Dec 5 16:40:00 2019
User: outskirts
Message:The older sibs had sleds but I had a saucer. I rode theirs though.
Date: Thu Dec 5 17:35:00 2019
User: CTenRN
Message:Metal detector!
Date: Thu Dec 5 18:01:00 2019
User: Camolot1
Message:A chemistry set, but they took it away when I tipped the alcohol lamp over and almost set fire to the house. The microscope I got the same year was great too.
Date: Thu Dec 5 18:19:26 2019
User: FairyGrandma
Message:A dancing Matilda doll. About three feet tall. You strapped her to your feet and you could dance with her.
Date: Thu Dec 5 19:09:10 2019
User: Giampaolo44
Message:Lego, and then the ZX Spectrum. Spent countless hours on both <3
Date: Thu Dec 5 19:41:27 2019
User: Oldblue
Message:Hah, I was a kid in the 1940's - a ball and a bat and glove plus a basketball hoop up over the garage door.
Eventually, my dad's wooden shafted golf clubs . A round of golf at the local city course was $0.50. oh yeah, in my neighbor's frozen back yard in the winter - hockey with a frozen tennis ball for
a puck.
Gray
Date: Thu Dec 5 23:53:23 2019
User: ScottyB
Message:Girder and Panels construction kit to build skyscrapers with!
Date: Fri Dec 6 00:30:29 2019
User: shara41
Message:MY paternal grandmother was a kindergarten teacher who taught me to read when I was 3. (1943)
Books were, and are,
an important part of my life ever since.
Date: Fri Dec 6 00:45:24 2019
User: TNmountainman
Message:No hula hoop stats. That was some craze for about a summer. Sure, I could do it, but it bored me after a several minutes, as I recall. I could do 2 or 3 at a time, too, but that's really not all that hard. A sister, tho, got pretty good at it. I tried it again one day a few years ago - and could still do it, but not as proficiently (duh) - and it not surprisingly still bored me quickly. I *much* preferred to do my hooping on the asphalt, concrete, and hardwood just a bit later on - altho baseball was by far my favorite.
Shockingly.......there is - or at least was(?) until recently - a tiny, 2-girl hula hoop "school" here. These two girls were stunningly good. One of them could do like Cirque de Soliel-level stuff. They would bring 2-3 dozen hoops to various free outdoor music events, and people would often pay more attention to them (doing wondrous tricks, etc.) than the music. They brought smaller ones (can we call them "gateway hoops"?) to hook the little kids, and I suppose get students. Really a pretty amazing, fun scene. That best girl was/is pretty mesmerizing.
Sorry to go on so.....
Date: Fri Dec 6 01:08:28 2019
User: TNmountainman
Message:And while I'm here.....speaking of baseball.......
Of course our neighborhood didn't have many financial resources for equipment, so we would always keep nailing the broken bats back together, and wrapping them with that old, sticky, black electrical tape. If one knew how to nail in thin brads, against the grain, it was pretty effective. But beyond that, we couldn't afford baseballs, so we would keep sewing the cover back on whatever one we had, and even wrapping *that* in electrical tape when times were dire. I learned to sew from my mother - by hand, of course - sewing the covers back on balls we'd worn out. She/we used dental floss because it was stronger than thread. Her first(?) job as a teenager was sewing covers on new baseballs for the local minor league team. Apparently it was cheaper to buy the wound cores and covers separately, and she was taught how to do it. That sounds amazing, doesn't it? But......I later adapted that to stitching back together old gloves. I did a softball glove repair for a niece 2-3 years ago.
I have 2-3-4 balls just laying around for no good reason, and when I see one of them, new or nearly so, it reminds of how hard times were then, in that regard. (In the snow, uphill both directions, of course!)
Date: Fri Dec 6 01:27:40 2019
User: sprucegoose
Message:An erector set
Date: Fri Dec 6 03:50:35 2019
User: redberet
Message:I'm surprised no one has mentioned slot cars. especially the kind that took up half the living room.
Date: Fri Dec 6 08:02:00 2019
User: Katya
Message:My brother's o-model train set-it took up a chunk of the basement after a while. My Dad built him a sort of table using sheets of plywood on saw horses.
My grandson is still nuts over hot wheels - he's almost 5 and must have 50 of them by now.He gets them as rewards for doing some little chores (and for breathing too, I think).
Date: Fri Dec 6 11:19:25 2019
User: Barometer
Message:Tonka Trucks in the sand pile. My favorites were the road grader and dump truck. My brother and I would be out there in the snow - we didn't care.
Date: Fri Dec 6 19:57:18 2019
User: bluedog
Message:From the female boomer perspective -
The original Barbie with heavy eye make up and built in earrings was amazing. What crazy toy developer thought little girls would like a doll that looked like a hoochie night club singer with stiletto heels and long black gloves? Insanity! But we loved it.
Link: 1959 Original Nightclub Barbie
Date: Sat Dec 7 06:52:49 2019
User: kirismum
Message:I was a child in 1950's England. I loved books and puzzles, but most of all my pogo stick.
Val
Date: Sat Dec 7 08:28:08 2019
User: wcwally
Message:Definitely the hockey game with the rods to move the players and the swirl of the player to move the puck.
Date: Sat Dec 7 09:18:11 2019
User: hotnurse
Message:I mentioned in another thread that my favorite Christmas toy for many years after was a pair of roller skates. I skated my butt off up and down our side street. Our mother even got out there with us and showed her skills of skating which included skating backwards. I never got that good but I was good enough to go to the local roller rink on weekends. It was a memorable place where you could just skate right into the bathroom at the end of the rink.
It's been great reading all of these comments. I remember most all of the toys mentioned although most have been posted by guys. I have five brothers who, at one time or another, had most of those toys although not for Christmas though. We were one layer of soil up from being dirt-poor.
Oh! I almost forgot!!! Every year on Christmas eve we got a new pair of flannel jammies so we could wake up the next morning with something on besides our underwear or raggedy year old jammies.
Date: Sat Dec 7 10:52:02 2019
User: gmwphoto
Message:Every year for Christmas, we received 3 new books. Still love to read. Go to the library more on line now and read through my Kindle. The best gift I received for my birthday was a pair of clamp on roller skates. Skated round and round on the driveway and sidewalks by our house. There were no sidewalks in front of the house so Mom always knew where we were when my sister, brother and I were outside roller skating.
Date: Sat Dec 7 12:41:53 2019
User: EEEK
Message:Tiny Tears doll; drank, cried and peed. Did NOT prepare me for motherhood, though lol! Also, an Elgin electric train. Dad used a huge piece of plywood to build a platform for it, complete with roads, trees, and a big green tunnel. In those days (50s), toys were pretty gender specific, but my parents decreed the set was for both my brother and me--though of course, he claimed it as his own!
Date: Sat Dec 7 13:00:04 2019
User: firenze
Message:A new pair of sox. Mother would unravel the old pair so she had thread to mend them until the next Christmas.
Date: Sat Dec 7 14:06:25 2019
User: Nadine
Message:I got a two-wheel bike but I fell off and broke my elbow at the end of the first week I learned to ride. I loved Tom Swift and Nancy Drew books but ended up reading fantasy the most as an adult. Loved a great chemistry set and ended up an English major. Go figure.
Date: Sat Dec 7 21:15:33 2019
User: Katya
Message:We had a big set of building bricks which we loved. The oldest ones we had were made of wood painted red. Later they were red plastic with green cardboard roofs and white bricks for foundations and white plastic doors, windows, garage doors, whatever. They were made in the US and called "Elgo" bricks, presumably a knockoff on the word Lego. A Christmas highlight was to get another can of them so we could build bigger stuff like skyscrapers. At the time I thought I wanted to be an architect like my grandfather who was also a civil engineer and my brother wanted to be an engineer (which he is).
I think some people still collect them. Years ago I sold the wooden ones to a guy who apparently has a whole little city made out of them so he was always looking for more bricks. They still sell the plastic ones on eBay, but I've never seen the wooden ones. I still have most of our collection - it's going to the grandson when he gets a little bigger.
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