PRE-MATURE CHRISTMAS MUSINGS
- Awesome Christmas gift that turned out to be absolutely confusing and frustrating: NFL Electric Football. The one where you'd lineup little figures and turn it on and the field would vibrate and players would go every which way but the right way. Sadly, there is a World Championship for that. I actually watched a 26-minute video.
On the other hand, Mattel's Electronic Football (the handheld game with blinking dots for players) was clutch. Wore dozens and dozens of 9-volt batteries out in that thing.
- Was thinking about Christmas and K-Mart in the mid-80s. Walk in and instantly get the whiff of popcorn; shiny commercial-grade linoleum; cafeteria with people puffing cigs and flipping them in those little aluminum ashtrays; hearing 50s and 60s instrumental Christmas tunes on the speakers; "Attention, K-Mart shoppers: For the next 15 minutes in the toy department, we will be having a Blue Light Special! All He-Man, WWF and GI Joe figures and Barbie Dolls will be an additional 10% off retail price. Hurry over and look for the blue lights flashing and the savings!"
Would give pretty much anything to experience that again. Talk about giddy.
- My Must Have Christmas Songs (no particular order)
Frank Sinatra - "The Christmas Waltz" <---The absolute apex for me
Perry Como - "(There's No Place Like) Home for the Holidays"
Bing Crosby - "Mele Kalikimaka"
Paul McCartney - "Wonderful Christmastime"
Darlene Love - "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)"
Wham! - "Last Christmas"
Secondary Christmas Toys That I Fondly Remember:
Jaws Game - I recall the only point of the game was to "fish" out as many objects (boot, anchor, etc.) from Jaws' mouth before he snapped it shut.
Toy camera - Whatever its name was, it basically took a visible picture and after a few minutes it went away and you could retake another.
Tabletop Arcade Games - miniature versions of the Pac-Man and Frogger arcade games.
NFL Huddles - Plush dolls of all 28 NFL team's mascots. Always a fan of Jumbo (NY) Jet. I'll also throw in the little NFL and MLB helmet sets and cardboard setup where you could place helmets in spots to show current team standings.
All-Star Baseball - The game board had two spinners on top of a diagram of a baseball field. A cardboard back panel is inserted into cut-out slots in the board, displays the key to the game cards and cardboard wheels that can be turned to display the correct inning, the number of outs and the score.
Each circular player card has a series of lines and numbers arranged in a circle around its center. The card is placed on a spinner, which the batting player spins. Once the spinner came to rest between two lines, the number for that section defined what happened to that batter.
If 1 was a homerun, someone like Ozzie Smith's "1" box would have a smaller window of success than say, Dale Murphy when spun.
Texas Instrument Speak n Spell - played that hangman game for days. Very underrated gift.
All toys would reside in the R2-D2 toy box when done playing for the day.
- TBS has ruined A Christmas Story for me. It, with ones like Frosty, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, Rupolph, and A Charlie Brown Christmas should only be shown once and on one day.
- Was in the backseat of car in '86 when mom was pretty much forced to tell me there was no Santa Claus when my older cousins kind of spilled the beans. Gut punch moment for kids.
- I'm fine with just candles in the window, ribbons and wreath on the door and surround with garland, you can have all the glitz and shock-and-awe decor. Also, would prefer a real tree.
