An R2D2 action figure. And the only reason I remember it is because it was from friends of my parents and I already had one and said so. My parents gave me a talking to later that I didn’t forget.
Same, except for the gift. A close family friend gave me a small plastic doll in a bathtub. I remember opening the gift, but have no idea what happened to it after I left hospital a few days later.
When I was four my older sister gave me her copy of Mac & Jeff, a book about two Scottish terriers, after I had proved to her that I could read it.
A Remco Flying Fox. It was all I wanted for Christmas that year (1959).
The ad is misleading: it isn’t until halfway through is that you realize that the plane isn’t actually flying. But you could pretend to fly it.
I had it for a couple of days. Then my dad returned it without asking me.
I wasn’t upset: it was boring toy. After about an hour, I had lost interest and didn’t miss it.
Christmas morning, 1962, Santa Claus had left me a big shiny yellow Tonka crane truck. He left me lots of other things too, but the crane was the only one I really saw. But there was a problem - one of the pieces of the crane arm that you winch out was missing. Santa had even left me a note saying that it had fallen out of his sleigh unnoticed and as soon as he got back to the North Pole he would get me a new one. Sure enough, one morning(I don’t remember the actual timing any more, but Santa was quick!) there it was with a red ribbon tied around it.
I have no idea now how my parents were able to acquire just one piece of a popular toy, but I suppose retail service was more personalized in those days. Or maybe it was Santa.
It’s funny, but I remember the ACT of opening Christmas and birthday gifts with my family very well, but I don’t really remember the gifts I received in those memories. I DO remember getting big Lego sets when I was in the ~8-10 year old range that were really exciting.
The earliest gift I can clearly remember wanting and receiving was when I was five or so and my parents bought me a coonskin cap and a “cowboys and Indians” toy set at Yellowstone. This was the mid 80s, so these things definitely already seemed anachronistic. Pretty sure my parents bought them as a nostalgia trip; my dad had a very Mayberry-esque upbringing.
A gumball machine/bank on my fifth birthday. I got other presents at the time but the gumball machine is the only one that I remember.
Of course I remember many other toys that I had before then, but I don’t remember actually getting them. They were kind of just there.
Four years old, Christmas, a Lincoln Logs set.
When I was 7 years old, in the 2nd grade, circa 1960, I wanted what was at the time a marvelous invention, a battery-operated transistor radio. And I got one. I took that radio with me everywhere for years, my favorite Top 40 station always playing as the soundtrack to my life. That radio was in no small way responsible for me eventually becoming a radio disc jockey myself, ensuring years of low pay and job insecurity, instead of pursuing a more lucrative occupation. 
The first gift I remember was a black cocker spaniel puppy I named Snoopy. I think I was three at the time. I’ve been a dog person ever since.
I think it was a toy cement mixer. The only problem was that I wanted a real one. I think it came before the zoo truck with animals. It was a fun toy, but would a variety of zoo animals ever be transported via truck?
Tonka truck, must have been 1957 or 8?
And yes, I played with the box. I remember being thrilled by it.
I remember very little from my youngest years. The first Christmas I remember was either 3rd or 4th grade. I remember going into the living room and seeing many bikes by the tree (5 kids in the family–I don’t remember how many got bikes that year). I don’t remember the color, but I do miss the banana seat.
I remember being given a big rubber snake. I was about two or three. I used to dance with it to kill em all.
$14.95 in 1959 seems insanely expensive for what it was!
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my tricycle that was stolen when someone boke into my house…… and my sit n spin was the first gift that I remember asking for and actually getting …I think my mom felt guilty over the easy bake oven incident the year before
see my family is big on cooking and baking and even tho grandma taught everyone in the family to cook and grandpa cooked for what soon would be the air force and my dad has army commendations for his running the fort ord mess hall for years I couldn’t get an easy bake oven because it was a "girls "toy and I never got one
And this in an era when all the really good chefs were men, anyway.
$128 in today’s dollars. Wow. Then again, that was probably the moral equivalent of a video-game system by 1959 standards.
I was around five back in 1973. It was Valentine’s Day and my grandmother had got me and my three sisters all some small toys and some candy. Mine was a little red and white teddy bear (I don’t care if it had long floppy ears and was probably a dog or bunny, it was a teddy bear dammit 
)
The reason I remember it is because I remember me crying and bawling as her and her husband played keep-away with it. Despite the gifts, overall just unpleasant people.
Happy ending though. The bear and I became best friends and he’s still sitting in my closet, threadbare and missing eyes replaced by buttons, after 45 years of service.
Different ones are memorable for different reasons. I think the first one was this remote control car that had a UFO body. It could only do 3-point turns. I remember it because I spent so much time thinking “WTF? Am I missing something here?”
Another Christmas I had this sort of “Red Ryder BB Gun” experience. I begged my parents for this thing called “Tyco Super Duper Double Looper Nite-Glow Slot-Car Racetrack”. It was everything I expected and I appreciated them so much getting the exact thing instead of the mere single-looper or the non-glowing models.
That Christmas my parents also got me a tape recorder. I remember this because it was my favorite gift of all time, but it’s a mystery how anybody thought of it. I didn’t ask for a tape recorder, never really used one, never talked about them. Wasn’t much into music or sound recording, but boy howdy I sure got up to speed quickly after I got my tape recorder.
It’s too bad tape recorders aren’t really a thing anymore. I mean I know we have digital but there’s nothing like that analog experience of winding, rewinding, repairing… I also figured out if you partially depress the buttons in combination with rewind or FF, you could play tapes sped up or in reverse. This is probably why my tape recorder only lasted a couple of years. But man, it was a sweet machine.