Toys and Christmas

We grew up with lots of toys and interesting things to occupy ourselves. I think that was largely due to dad trying to make up for what he grew up without.

On Christmas morning it was always hard to tell him from one of the kids. He was always right down in the middle of the action, playing with the Tonka trucks or riding one of the tricycles around in circles in our little house. I don't know for sure, but I think it's safe to assume that my parents both went all-out on Christmas. We weren't spoiled either--we were taught that we respected our things and treated them with care.  We also learned that we were lucky because there were a lot of kids out there in the world that didn't get nice things. We were taught to always pick up our toys (although in a house that size we really had to anyway), and if they were outside toys, we had to make sure they were gathered up and put in their proper place every night before we came in. I learned to treasure my things because I knew if anything happened to them I would not get a replacement.

I don't know if we had the "latest & greatest" or not, but my memory tells us we did. I'm basing that on our TV watching during the time. Marketing then was what we saw on our network television shows--all three of them. Marketing to children was just getting underway at that time, and I'm sure our Saturday morning cartoons were peppered with ads touting everything from Mattel, Marx, Hasbro, and everything else. One of the big things then were all the Mattel sets that they sold that used Plastigoop. They were comprised of a master cooker called a Thingmaker, and a series of little metal molds you poured the stuff in. After heating it for the prescribed time, you removed the molds (carefully, they were hot!) and popped your little rubbery creations out. The whole thing was a lot of fun, which is apparently why we ended up getting new refills of the brightly-colored goop and additional mold sets over the years. I'm sure we had them all. Creepy Crawlers, Fun Flowers, Creeple People, and more. If those rubbery things weren't cool enough, then they came out with the Incredible Edibles. Suddenly, there were things you shouldn't eat but could!  And of course, we did. Who knows what kind of crap we put in our bodies back then with stuff like that and the EasyBake oven creations.

Yep, with all us kids, and between Christmases and birthdays, we had no shortage of Tonkas, Barbies, board games, plastic model kits, and anything else you could think of.