I found an unfinished story on my flash drive that I might take up and finish because I’ve always had a soft spot for it.
However, the story involves an adult’s final letter to Santa coming back to haunt her, and this story was written (what exists of it, anyway) years ago, so times have changed. The big things on the list are fortunately still relevant but the filler gifts wouldn’t be the same… And I’d like some authenticity.
What did your typical preteen girl want in the year 2000? Not the smart phones and tablets they do now (I don’t think having a cell phone in middle school was remotely common yet.) So what did they want?
I’m hoping moms, dads, and people who were born in the late 80s see this thread. Or people who otherwise remember what was hoped for by typically middle class kids back then.
I was working in a kids store around that time. Stuff I remember from late 90s to early 00s, Pokemon, Bratz, nanopets/Tamagatchi, glitter makeup, low rise bellbottom jeans with a crapload of rhinestones, and basically glitter and rhinestones on everything.
My niece was about the right age then. She always seemed to want an album from some ridiculous boy band, but it was a different ridiculous boy band every blessed year.
I taught Sunday school to that age in the early 2000s.
I remember them wanting clothes or stuff for their hobbies (new books or snowboarding or dance or craft or electronic stuff). They were a little too old to ask for toys, but a little too young to ask for money.
Hot toys for 2000 as listed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The list reminds me that Harry Potter was hot even though the first movie wouldn’t come out until the following year. 11 years old seems like an ideal age to be into Harry Potter.
I know that American Girl Dolls were a big thing back then. If a girl had started collecting them when she was younger, she may still want one at the age of 11.
The fourth Harry Potter book came out in 2000, as well as the third His Dark Materials book.
Pokemon was in full swing in 2000. If your heroine is a nerd, 2000 was the baby age of anime fandom in the West. These were the days of blurry third-generation VHS copies and where official anything was expensive and hard to get.
Tamagotchi were more of a late-1990’s fad IIRC, but they were still around in 2000. They just weren’t the latest thing anymore.
Smartphones were still a bit in the future, and cell phone use by tweens wasn’t unheard of, but it wasn’t really common either. Many schools banned communications devices in those days out of the 1990’s stereotype of the pager-carrying drug dealer.
I don’t know man. I remember furbies still being relevant 'till about 2004. Maybe not for an 11 year old girl though.
I agree with rhinestones, low rise jeans, Pokémon (cards or plushies though), Bratz, Tamagotchi (there was one that was like a Tamagotchi, but wasn’t. It floated in water and only had like 2 buttons. I forget what it was called. Might’ve been more of a mid-2000’s thing though), Spice Girls, Harry Potter, Boy Bands.
Maybe jewelry? Nothing too sophisticated, of course. But clip on earrings from Claire’s, or maybe a simple purse from somewhere like a Target/Claire’s would make sense. For clothes, a denim jacket, or pink spaghetti strap tank top maybe? Something from Gap, Children’s Place, or Limited Too.
Probably not in the US, unless the character was a particular fan of the Spice Girls. It’s my recollection that they had faded in popularity by that point, and a quick look at Wikipedia tells me that while they did release a new album in November of 2000 it peaked at #39 in the US (their first two albums hit #1 and #3).
The Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, and Matchbox 20 (my younger sister’s favorite band at the time, although she was a few years older than the character) all had new CDs out in 2000.
Aside from Harry Potter, I think popular book series for 5th/6th graders would have been Animorphs and A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Not every kid had a TV in her room them. Having her own TV might be something, especially since it was something some of her friends would have. Or a landline phone in her room, especially one with its own number and special ring. Or, depending on what kind of girl she is, she might want her own computer. 11 is a common age to get these things of your own. Now, you would get a tablet, while back then, you might get a bare-bones desktop, or your parents might get a new one for the living room and give you the old one, unless they are well-fixed financially. When did Dell come out with those cheap desktops? Middle-class parents might be able to afford one of those for a kid.
There were a bunch of Nancy Drew PC games that came out then and got very high ratings. I played some, and they had an all-ages rating, but they were fairly challenging. If I’d been 11 then, I would have been entranced by them.