Oooo. Good one! Yes, I miss the Wish Book. I remember going through them every night for two months!
Good times!
I’m the middle of five kids, so Christmas morning, heck, everyday of the year, was always a wild, noisy, fun time.
I remember when I was eight and got this really cool rocket launcher that I wanted reeeeeeeeeeal bad. It was spring loaded and shot a rocket twelve feet in the air then a parachute (which I had to load) would pop out and it would float back down. Well, not float exactly, but it didn’t come down as hard. The fun part of that Christmas morning? It was rainy that day so I couldn’t go outside and shoot off my rocket, so I took it into the bedroom I shared with my younger brother to shoot it. There was this one little logistical problem I did not figure out in time. The rocket shot twelve feet up in the air… the ceiling in the bedroom was ten feet high… 
Made a really great hole in the ceiling! Unfortunately my parents could not appreciate a great hole in the ceiling. Kinda shortsighted of 'em wasn’t it?
Afterall, you were just adding to the ambience of the room! Grown ups can be so narrow minded…
I had a hard time finding them for a few years, but now they are prevalent on eBay. Link (in case you want another set.)
In the early 80’s my mom went through a soft sculpture doll phase. These were basically cloth versions of Cabage Patch Kids. She made a giant one for me one year. It was the size of a 2-3yr old kid, all dressed up in a hand made dress, wearing red tights and red and blue saddle shoes. I’ve still got her somewhere. I’ll never forget walking into the living room on Christmas morning. The lighting was dim and the doll was unwrapped, sitting on a pile of presents. For a split second I thought that maybe Santa had left behind one of his elves by mistake.
I was a pretty strict mom, I wouldn’t let my boys watch PG-13 movies until they were actually 13, kept the radio mostly off (although we’d listen to some CDs), same for the TV. Well my boys really wanted a Nintendo, and knew I would never get them one.
So that year, I told my husband hey let’s get them that game and really blow their socks off. The Nintendo was new enough that they were pretty expensive so we only had that for the boys plus I think one other small gift each–but the tree looked pretty forlorn and empty and the kids openly wondered when the rest of their presents would show up.
So we made them wait to open the Nintendo until absolute last, and you could see it was killing them–both that they had to wait, that they had no idea what the box was and that they had just the one huge present.
When they got enough of the paper off to figure it out, my older son (who would have been about 11 then, FELL DOWN he was so excited, and he teared up. The younger one started jumping up and down hollering at the top of his lungs. They were blown away that their strict mom would go for something like that.
That was a pretty cool Christmas.
I think one of my fondest if when my daughter was three. I was really broke and was having a hard time getting stuff for Christmas. I was doing the best I could with cheap Dollar Store toys.
My mother found an entire kitchen play set on the tree lawn. We picked it up and brought it home. As we were cleaning it up we found all the pans, plates and what not inside the cupboard. There was even the apron and oven mit.
We got it cleaned up and hidden. Come Christmas morning my daughters face is something I will never forget. She is seventeen now and still remembers that play set.
This thread is making me teary-eyed. 
We always spent Christmas at home, usually just the four of us. Bro and I got books and some necessities and fun stuff too. I remember the Christmas when my Mom gave me a set of Barbie clothes she had made-- a ball gown, a tutu…really cool.
What I remember best is (1) decorating the tree. We had the same artificial tree during my whole childhood. Pop would put it and the lights up and then stand back for me and my brother and Mom to decorate. Mom had a special set of clay painted birds only she was allowed to handle, and she put them at the top of the tree. We also had a couple of wooden puzzly toys that confounded me every year! (2) Christmas breakfast. After opening gifts Christmas morning, but before Mass, Mom would make pancakes and sausage. This wasn’t the usual breakfast, and it was the only day of the year she would cook it.
At about 12 or 13 years old I discovered The Beatles. This was in the mid-70s a few years after they broke up, of course.
I asked for the 62-66 album for Christmas, and one of my brothers bought it for me. I remember fondly listening to it, through headphones, on a portable record player, yes, record player, all day long.
At first I was a little disappointed since I didn’t realize that they had covered so many other popular tunes. That is until a few days later when my sister’s friend informed that no, these were in fact all original Beatles’ songs. Songs that I had known all my life because every Tom, Dick, and Harriet would cover one of them on any number of the popular variety shows of the era.
I have been a major Beatles fan since, and when hearing most of the songs on that LP even today I am still transported back 30-odd years, sitting on the living room floor with my portable record player.
That record is one of the very few gifts I even remember from my childhood. Not that I didn’t get gifts: I just don’t remember them!
Me too!
I think it was '98 the last time I was visiting my sister and her family down in Texas. While there, I learned that they hadn’t really thought of what “Santa” would leave for their boys, ages 9 and 7 or so. I told them not to worry and that I had packed a giant inflatable T-Rex.
Christmas morning, I waited until everyone was asleep then went downstairs with the dinosaur and an electric pump. I had forgoten how loud those pumps are; the whole time I was hoping nobody would come down to investigate, particuarly the little guys. Nobody did. I set the beast in the doorway between the tree and the main stairs, took a couple pictures, then went back to bed.
I wished I could have seen their faces when they came downstairs but I was too tired. I stayed in bed until 10:30 or so; one of the boys got me up. Later, I found out that my sister was the first one down and she freaked! She had no idea that when I said “giant”, I meant 9 feet from head to sole.
The best, best, BEST XMas memory of mine is my first with daHubby and our first tree.
Contrary–you are one cool mom. That’s a wonderful story and (to me) what Christmas should be about (never mind the religious stuff right now).
I also got my daughter a play kitchen at a garage sale for $8. It was fiberboard, from Sears waaaay back in the day. I am very proud to say that I was bringing it to the curb and a new family was walking by–I gave it to them, so somewhere that kitchen is making some little person happy, all over again. The dad came back and hauled it away (along with our turtle sandbox).
My sister and mother also made me some handmade Barbie clothes one year. I wasn’t all that into Barbie, but it was cool to have a fancy bed (wooden) with “satin” sheets and lace pillows to go with her new outfits.
I remember one Xmas a few years ago when it had been quite warm all Nov. and Dec. My kids (I was pregnant with #2 son) were very upset about a green Christmas. They were 8 and 6 and playing down in the basement when I called to them: as dusk fell and all the lights were on in the street, a heavy snow started to fall. It was beautiful. I think they were happier about that then any gift they got that year.
Love the dino!
I told this story somewhere else on the board once, but here goes.
My mom slipped on ice and broke her hip about two weeks before Christmas the year I was a senior in high school. It meant my dad had to finish the shopping and I had to do more of the getting ready than usual, but we got it figured out. I guess Dad wanted to do something special for Mom, or else her being hurt put a bit of a fire under him, but he went and did something I know she had been talking about for a while. He took her mother’s diamond ring and had it reset. It was a straight gold band with one somewhat larger center stone and a small one on each side. It had been Nana’s engagement ring and one of the smaller stones had come from her mother’s watch (my great-grandmother). Mom hadn’t been able to wear it for quite a while, since the stone had come loose. She had it fastened on with scotch tape and it had been sitting in her jewelry box. She kept saying she wanted it reset but she never got around to it. So Dad had it done for her in a new, white gold, more modern setting. We all knew, and when he brought the box home I unwrapped it veeerrry carefully to see it, then put the wrapping back on. Come Christmas morning we did the usual gift opening, one at a time, and that little box was the last one. Mom took it, looked at Dad kind of like, “What did you do?”, unwrapped it way too carefully, opened the little box, said, “Oh, Daddy”, and started to cry. We all laughed at and with her.
Awesome! I’m glad to know you can still get them. However, it wouldn’t be the same if they weren’t spinning from the heat generated by these. 
In a previous thread I posted about fond memories of the Christmas when my brother and I both got bicycles. As it happened, so did many of the other kids in the street that year. There we all were, riding our new bikes up and down the street in our pyjamas at about 6.30am. It seemed such a pity to have to go and get dressed to go to Mass.
Another time was a stinking hot Christmas day sometime in the 1970s when we had to trek across town to have lunch at the home of some distant cousins. There wasn’t a great deal of enthusiasm until we were informed that the cousins had a pool! I seem to recall that we children spent the whole day in the pool. I think we even had lunch sitting on the steps.
Christmas: pool? Bicycles? I don’t comprehend…???
Pssst…Lives in Oz–very hot and sunny there 'round Xmas time. Probably eats Vegomite for Christmas dinner, too…
Oh, imagining those kids riding bikes in the snow (before checking location) reminds me of a memorably frigid Christmas when we all had to strap on our new Christmas gloves and hats to push the car down the street till we got to a downhill where it would start, to then carry us to church!
Some of my fondest Christmas memories took place outside our home.
Getting all bundled up for the walk to the 69th St. Terminal and taking the el to Center City. Visiting Santa in the lobby of the Girard Bank building then off to Wanamaker’s for the Christmas Light Show (narrated by John Facenda, featuring the Enchanted Christmas Tree and the Dancing Fountains!). A walk down Market to Lits’ for a Christmassy jaunt through the Enchanted Colonial Village.
Yup, good times. AAMOF, I’ll be dragging my son and his Scout Troop to the Christmas Light Show (Macy*s is now in the Wanamaker Building, Julie Andrews does the narration and they’ve not turned the water on for the fountains in at least a decade) this weekend.