Does anyone else remember the fantastic catalogs that places like Sears would send out? Someone has been scanning and uploading them at wishbookweb.com.
When I was growing up, this was the “go-to” book for potential presents. They had slot cars, “Man From U.N.C.L.E.” gear, stingray bikes, telescopes, the whole nine yards.
My all-time favorite has to be the jet-propelled glider. It worked just as advertised. The only problem was that it flew too far. I can’t tell you how many times it flew over the schoolyard fence and up on somebody’s roof!
I have been thinking about this very subject this Christmas. I can remember a flurry of exchanging Wishbooks during Christmas in years past. Every item on the Christmas lists had to be cross-referenced by catalog name and page.
Oh, well, my family doesn’t even buy gifts anymore anyway. Just exchange cards.
When I was a kid receiving the Sears and JC Penny’s catalog was the official start of the Christmas Season in my house. My brothers and sisters would fight to be the first to look at the catalogs. We’d each spend days pouring over them wonder what to ask Santa for. Of course we’d skip right over the boring clothes and go to the toy section in the back…
I love looking at the ones from the early to mid-'80s. It reminds me of how badly I wanted a Cabbage Patch doll, and how mom couldn’t find one. I also love looking at the other toys from that time: Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, Barbies. Brings back a lot of great memories and it’s fun to see which ones I actually had.
In our house we had a threefer: Montgomery Wards, Sears, and LaBelle’s (now Direct Merchandise or something like that).
Mom would give my sister and I a notebook, scissors, and glue. We would scour the catalogs for what we wanted, cut out the pics/descriptions/price and arrange just so in the notebooks.
This was all early November, usually.
Mom and Dad would review them at their leisure. If we managed to get into trouble, they would rip out a page or two. sniff
Yeah, the Sears Fat-Chance-I’m-Going-To-Get-That Book! Those were great. To the best of my knowledge none of us ever got any of the stuff we helpfully marked, but we’d look at them all year. Still, Mom & Dad managed a family trip to Disneyland every November, so not getting a lot of crap didn’t bother us too much.
I used to read every page of the mid 1970s Sears wishbooks. I actually got a lot of the NFL stuff from there. That 1979 wishbook on the website shows most of my room back then!
Thanks for the link. I’m still looking for that playhouse/ranch house that looked kinda like a log cabin and had a hitching rail in the front for your pony. I wanted that soooo bad. Of course, a pony and cabin wouldn’t have worked in a tract house neighborhood in mid-60’s Memphis. (sigh).
I have a vague memory of either Sears or Penny’s around 1970 (plus or minus a year or two) putting out their christmas book with Dennis the Menace cartoons scattered thru the book. Anyone else remember that?
I’ve actually scored a couple of the Sears Wishbooks from the 70s off of eBay to ease my nostalgic needs. I <3 them (and now should go look for some more).
I was looking around the OP’s link last night and found one of the catalogs with Dennis cartoons in it, but unfortunately now I’m on a different computer and can’t remember which one. If you poke around the catalogs on the page, it’s in there somewhere. Sorry I can’t be more specific.
Outstanding. The Wish Book ruled for me and my cousins when we were little - given that Grandma worked for Sears and got a discount, we knew that that book was our best bet. Like others, I’m flipping through and seeing things that I got, things I begged for and didn’t get, and things that I didn’t ask for but was given.
I’m so glad this is online - just a month ago, I was thinking that I should try to find some of these catalogs on ebay!
What’s funny is seeing how cheap certain things were before inflation, and also how shockingly pricey some things were. I always remembered the PXL-2000 being expensive, but it was $200!
OMG. The 1966 Sears Christmas Catalog has, on page 532, my most memorable Christmas gift – Blaze (a glorified rocking horse with articulated legs that moved when you bounced on him, and he TALKED!).
Blaze was the “pie in the sky” gift. My sister and I thought we had about as much chance to get Blaze as a real pony.
But when we came downstairs on Christmas morning, there he was, in front of the tree. I will never forget that moment!
Ah the fond memories of the Sears Christmas catalog. I would spend hours figuring out what I wanted. And then check that list over and over.
An odd tangent but: Sometimes I wonder if growing up poor was is some ways a better way to grow up. If you have little, then days like Christmas and your birthday are more special and the memories more precious.
