Finger paints. Got 'em!
Wanted a working microscope…and got a 5 buck plastic non-adjustable POS that had lens equivalent to those magnifying toys you could find in a Crackerjacks box.
The best Christmas present I ever got was along the lines of the Red Ryder, and I hadn’t even asked for, nor dreamed of it. My brother bought me my first gun at age 12, a mail order .22 cal J.C. Higgins bolt action, tube feed rifle. I put thousands of rounds through that thing. I still have it, nearly 60 years later, and can’t bring myself to get rid of it.
it’s weird. I’ve been thinking about this since i saw this thread yesterday, and i can’t think of one thing i wanted as a kid that i didn’t get.
i wasn’t spoiled really. i had more than some kids, other kids had more than me. and i know i had to have seen things i would’ve liked to have had, but knew it wasn’t in the cards, so i just didn’t bring it up.
i think the fact i always had dirt bikes i could get on and, for the largest part, could ride everywhere i wanted to go was part of it. that was the biggest joy of growing up. who needed toys when you got a dirt bike.
*dirt bike = various 2 stroke & 4 stroke motorcycles.
Fake Red Ryder ad from National Lampoon vol. 1 #55:
"“Tommy! You could put your little brother’s eye out!”
“You bet I could, Mom!”
Piano lessons.
My parents couldn’t afford to buy a piano for me. Renting by the month was seriously considered.
The cost of lessons and a lack of wall space were the final nails in that dream.
Today, a digital piano (student grade) costs under $500 and weighs 16 lbs.
They offer decent 61 key digital keyboards for $300. Just in case your child looses interest.
I am an odder case; my things I badly wanted were cheap and easy, I still didn’t get them, but I never minded very much. One thing I badly wanted for a couple years was the “chest of soldiers” like this:
and I did end up getting one but ages later as a teen with my own wages. Hey – I wanted it and could get it so I did! I got presents for Christmas and some nice ones (like a chemistry set that got bigger than all of us combined) but never because I had put them on a list or anything; same goes for a lot of my cousins. I guess our family just didn’t do that kind of thing much.
My parents weren’t well off, but they tried. Some things that I really wanted, I ended up with something of lesser quality. I reallyreallyreally wanted a 3-speed Raleigh bike one year, and ended up with a 2-speed Western Auto piece of junk. I reallyreallyreally wanted a Rocket Pogo Stick one year. Instead I got some crappy pogo that had a spring so stiff my skinny ass couldn’t compress it. Parents don’t always understand that kids know the difference between quality and crap.
Oh, Man! I had one of these! Green, just like the pictures. The family had a whole bunch of bikes, and this one never, ever ran right, and so was seldom used. I got a hold of it later in life and got it working pretty well, but it was just a little toy for me. I had a bunch of other bikes by that time. Ended up getting stolen in Vegas in the 90’s.
Only thing I have left from it is the original air cleaner. Funny, I stumbled across it just yesterday.
roller skates, ice skates, a sled, a bicycle. For some reason they would never buy us outdoor toys:confused:
The Barbie Dream House. It was huge and JUST 150 dollars, mama!
She got me the Barbie town house, the airplane, the big pool, the mobile home, the Donnie and Marie set with stage, and every Barbie they put out between 73 and 82. But never the Dream House. My poor abusive childhood! 
A Cabbage Patch Kid the year they first came out and everyone was going nuts over them, and yes, I got one. There was a series of events where my aunt by marriage’s sister wound up with a doll and no one to give it to. She won it in a raffle where she worked I think. My aunt knew I wanted one and got her sister in touch with my grandmother. Gran bought the doll off of her and surprised me with it. My parents had told me not to be disappointed if Santa didn’t bring me the doll and I had gotten a pair of roller skates that year so I was already pretty happy… but when I opened that big box from Gran and it was the Cabbage Patch Kid I was over the moon!
I still have the doll, she’s packed away somewhere but she’s still around and in her original dress.
APBA baseball game. I got that at age 11.
The year before I’d desperately wanted an aqualung which I didn’t get (appropriately)
I honestly don’t even remember asking for anything at Christmas.
I think my biggest surprises were skis (with boots and poles) and a really cool faux leather bomber jacket!
I was low maintenance.
Oh, and The Beatles red album! Which I did ask for.
I think you meant indoor. Or you had a really big house!
Shrimpenstein
It was my fave show at a certain very young age. Pretty sure it was only shown locally.
Back then, my mom and I were in Bev Hills early one morning and a toy store had Shrimpenstein puppets in the window. At the time, there was nothing I wanted more in the world, and here it was just behind a store window! The store was closed, but mom said we could take a walk and come back when they opened. Actually acquiring a puppet depended on the price.Good to her word, mom took me for a walk and when we came back to the toy store, it was magically open. The Shrimpenstein puppets were $5 each. I looked to mom with hope, but only got: nope, too much. My heart was broken; the wound has never completely healed.
Fortunately, mom atoned many times over with some of the coolest presents ever.
A rock polishing kit. I figured that I could take ordinary stones and turn them into valuable gems – that was the whole point of it, wasn’t it? – and so I thought, hey, wouldn’t it be awesome to get rich with whatever’s at hand?
Spent my childhood not getting one; probably because, to my parents, a boy asking for a jewelry maker was the equivalent of one asking for a Barbie doll.
For both myself and the second youngest it was Mouse Trap. Never got one.
Finally got to play the game over a decade later when I was a volunteer counselor at a summer camp run by the county. Boy, was it ever stupid! I guess never getting it was a good thing. 
No I meant outdoor. I asked for roller skates, ice skates, a sled, a bicycle all one would use out of the house. Never received them; as indicated by my last sentence.
One year I asked for a ten-speed bike, cuz I really wanted a ten-speed bike, and was so stoked to see a big bike-shaped thing draped in a sheet next to the tree. Yeeeeaaah!
It was a ten-speed bike all right. For my brother - who, to my knowledge, had not asked for a ten-speed bike. But there he was with one on Christmas day!
I’d never gone all bratty and cried on Christmas before or since, but that was just utter bullshit. I lost it and spent a long time crying in my room. My parents both make fun of me and apologize to me for that one, still, 25 years later.