‘Tis the season for gift guides! There are so many lovely ones out there and I love to peruse them all. Funnily enough, I almost never buy anything that was featured in a gift guide, because by the time the guides come out I have already completed my shopping, and I will NOT deviate from my early-shopping habits, no matter how tempting the offerings may be. I do, however, like to imagine that I might note certain items for the following year. If only I could remember them all.
Gifts are fun to give and fun to receive, and in my recent plea to Ask Me Anything, Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) asked: What are some of the Very Best Gifts you have ever received? Well, Suzanne, as I’ve mentioned before I am pretty much always delighted with any gift, but I thought that today I would talk about my Very Best Childhood Gifts.
There is a reason I lost my mind and blacked out with excitement when my friend Elise (HI ELISE) sent me a reprinted Sears catalogue: I was OBSESSED with the Sears catalogue as a child, all of them throughout the year, but most of all, the Wish Book. When did the Wish Book come out? It must have been in plenty of time before Christmas – the fall, maybe? – because items took a while to order (by phone!) and then arrive, but I have no real idea. In any case, I would page through it with the seriousness of a scholar, circling things and making notes. I loved everything about it; I loved the “Gifts Under $10” section, I loved the little wintry ensembles that would be in the clothing section, I could barely imagine being fancy enough to get cubic zirconia tennis bracelets or bottles of Poison perfume. What would my life be like if I had that matching beret, scarf, and glove set? I would wonder and then SOMEONE WOULD GIVE ME SUCH A SET and my life was pretty much the same, but with fancy matching winter accessories.
One thing I coveted desperately but never received was a Snoopy Sno Cone machine, but to be honest, it’s probably for the best. It was most likely garbage that would yield nothing like the delectable delights tasted only at the shopping mall parking lot fairs of my youth, or the Calgary Stampede, and so I can just let it live in glory in my dreams. This is not unlike Easy Bake Ovens: they seemed so wonderful and miraculous, and yet were a recipe not for delicious tiny cakes but for third-degree burns and crunchy-edged but pudding-centred disasters.
Circling back to the Best Gifts Ever Received, here are the Top Five from my childhood and adolescence. I was the recipient of many wonderful things, but these are the ones that stand out the most.
If you look past the Kool-Aid stained face, you can see the dollhouse to the left. Fun fact: my grandma – the same one who aided and abetted my grandpa in the making of the dollhouse – made that quilt for me. It featured girls in costumes from other countries, because I loved thinking of girls just like me, but in different places all around the world. What would their lives be like? I would wonder, looking at the clogs on the girl from the Netherlands.
This photo cracks me up. I am holding some tiny dollhouse furniture – A TV! A lamp! I love lamp! – with such intense focus. Who is the man on the couch? I mean, probably my dad, but who can say really. Although everyone in the world had that couch, I know from the throw pillows that this was at my grandma’s house. It’s possible that could be an uncle behind me. NO ONE KNOWS. The 70s was a bad time for decent photos, and a bad time for my hair.
Diana had some sassy shapewear.
The dress! There is a little slit on the front, and that held her bouquet.
Aw, it’s sad to think of now, the hopefulness of a young woman, only to end in terrible sadness and tragedy. Well, the world was richer with her in it.
My first day of grade seven, making use of all that makeup. See what I mean about the couch? Tell me you didn’t have one too.
I told my son about my love for this book, saying It isn’t really about King Arthur at all, it’s all about the women, to which he replied That’s really on-brand for you. Isn’t it?
Do you remember your Very Best Gifts Ever? It doesn’t have to be from childhood, of course! This is where I will also mention that the Very Best Non-Childhood Gift is Rex, who was groomed this week and looks exactly like a stuffed-animal replica of himself.
I mean, come on. How am I not dead from cuteness overload?
As a reminder, if you have questions, I have answers! Just fill out this form. If you don’t have questions, just fill me in on gifts you’ve loved, gifts you’ve given, even gifts that you hated! There are no rules here. xo
Oh, Nicole! I felt so much about your reading likes and loves were revealed in this post–that perceptive comment about Mists of Avalon being on brand for you and this: “It featured girls in costumes from other countries, because I loved thinking of girls just like me, but in different places all around the world. What would their lives be like?” I love this curiosity and empathy about you so much!
When I was younger, my grandfather built me a dollhouse that was an exact replica of my parents’ house; the rooms had the same wallpaper, he made miniatures of our furniture and my books – the whole works! Now, it sits in my basement trapped in this weird limbo / intersection of “this is a really special time capsule on so many levels and all I have left of that house” and “my 9-year-old daughter would love this so hard and play the heck out of it until it crumbles”… Thanks for the memories – that Pound Puppy got me right in the feels!
Your Kool-Aid stained face! I love. ❤️
One of my close friends visited England with her family during the summer Princess Di married Butthead. But I remember getting up early (even before sunrise!) to watch the royal wedding. She brought back from England gifts with Diana and Butthead’s faces on them. Now that I think about it, it was very cool.
Oh my goodness, that dollhouse is amazing! What a wonderful gift! I think I’d enjoy a dollhouse now, even at my age!
I love EVERYTHING about this, from the Sears Catalog memories to the idea of your mom making a back-room deal for a Cabbage Patch doll to the tiny toilet paper roll (essential) to the photos of young Nicole and made-up pre-teen Nicole to The Aunties and especially the butt comment to your son’s “on brand” comment to the pictures of an absolutely GLORIOUS and so proud of himself Rex. Thank you for answering my question. And I have another one: When can we expect a book of humorous essays from you, Nicole?!?! You are so much more enjoyable than David Sedaris et al.
I have a terrible memory and I am sure I got many MANY wonderful gifts over the years. But the two I remember most vividly from childhood were getting a Barbie Dream House — which I LOVED for years, and in which I enacted many extremely detailed and convoluted and highly dramatic stories for my Barbies — and then when I was in sixth grade a boom box, along with a Bonnie Raitt CD. (Why Bonnie Raitt? She was not hip with the sixth grade set. Why not Michael Jackson’s Dangerous? Or The Bodyguard soundtrack? Or one of the several Garth Brooks albums that came out that year? To be fair, I acquired No Fences at some point later. But nonetheless I became an instant Bonnie Raitt fan.)
The Mists of Avalon is so dark! Maybe it’s just perfect for a 15yo, but I don’t know! Maybe some of the seedier aspects of it just went over your head.
For some reason I can no longer remember, I wanted a new backpack. My parents refused to buy me one because I had a perfectly good one, but I wanted a new one. My dear Uncle Kevin (a bachelor then and a bachelor now who still sends me a present to unwrap every year) was stationed in the Bahamas and he sent me a new backpack internationally. What a dear man.
Rex’s handsomeness cannot be underestimated. Do you think he knows he’s glorious?! How can he not? You must tell him a hundred times a day, right?
Well, this is a bummer – I commented, but it isn’t here. I’ll try again . . .
I wish I was clever enough to come up with a good question, this one is great and your answer is so fun.
When I was about 9, I asked for a stuffed animal. For some reason, we never had stuffed toys. No idea why. There is a home movie (without noise) of me opening a stuffed dog. I basically lost my mind with excitment. My face was so red and you can tell I was squealing with delight. Maybe I’d been told I wasn’t getting a stuffed animal?
Like you, I really wanted the Snoopy Snow Cone machine and the Easy Bake Oven. I never got them. I also wanted a Barbie head to do her hair and makeup. Again, never happened.
The couch is funny. Ours was early colonial plaid reds and blues.I feel like my neighbors had that couch. I wonder what future generations will laugh at us for.
Funny enough, 27 years ago today Coach proposed. Best Christmas gift ever. Hands down.
I got a bike for Christmas when I was nine. We’d moved from the city to a small town the previous spring and I was allowed to wander more than I had previously, so it was a great gift. I was pretty much allowed to ride anywhere in town I wanted to go and I loved that freedom.
When I saw your post title, I knew this was going to be amazing and it did NOT disappoint.
I love that your Grandma woke you up at 2:30 am to watch the royal wedding. I remember watching William and Kate’s wedding vividly because my daughter was a newborn and I sat on the couch and pumped (I had terrible supply; sigh) while I watched their wedding on TV.
I also LOVED the Wish Book. I don’t think I ever got a single thing that I circled, but the possibilities of it all were endless and blew my mind.
I’m not sure what my favourite Christmas gift would be? I have lots of memorable ones (like my pawn shop alarm clock, a doll I called Christmas, skate blades)…but I’m trying hard to think what I’d classify as my favourite? My daughter gifted me an ornament years ago that I really cherish. My husband bought me a food processor one year which seems like a very lame gift, but I didn’t think I wanted one…and then I got one, and use it all the time. So that one made me very happy, in a weird adult way.
I read Mists of Avalon in junior high! I think I picked it up off my mom’s bookshelf because I liked the cover. I don’t remember anything except the story except that it was awesome.
My favorite gift memory was when I was 6 and got a Speak n’Spell. But oh the humanity, my parents didn’t see the fine print that the batteries were not included. There was a blizzard on Christmas that morning and it was so cold that the car wouldn’t start, but my dad bundled up and walked to the nearest gas station to get batteries. I’ve never forgotten that he did that.
Oh, The Wish Book was THE best. I remember spending hours and hours pouring over that book circling things.
Poor Princess Di; she was loved by everyone but her husband. The whole situation was tragic.
I love that you still have your Princess Di paper dolls! And I adore the pictures of childhood Nicole – even with the Kool-Aid stained face.
We did not have that couch; although I do recall a hideous orange, pleather couch that resided in our den. but I do remember that couch being in one of my aunt’s home. That was a wild (and unfortunate) time in home décor, wasn’t it?
Do you know what is odd? While I remember a sense of abundance around the holidays, meaning lots of gifts under the trees, I don’t really remember what I got! Maybe that is the sign that I was never going to be a gift person? I mean, I know I loved whatever my parents picked out for us, I just don’t have strong memories about the actual gifts. I did have a cabbage patch doll that I loved. Funny story – my cousin had one, too, and the doll happened to have her name (Julie). She found the adoption certificate that comes with the doll and thought SHE was adopted! She confronted her parents with the evidence and everyone had a good laugh over it. But poor Julie, thinking her parents were trying to bamboozle her.
So the best gift I have ever gotten was when I graduated from high school. My mom kept a journal of my senior year of high school. She wrote in it nearly every day. She’d record what I was going through and try to impart the advice I was too stubborn to listen to. I was a well-behaved kid but sadly not super nice to my mom at times. She wanted so badly to be close to me and I gave her the cold shoulder a lot of the time. And I went through a really rough break-up during senior year so it was a tumultuous time… But it was an amazing gift. I have apologized profusely to my mom for how snotty and rude I was to her as a teen. She said she didn’t think anything of it and knew it was just a stage of life. But gah. That’s the main reason why I was happy to have boys. I would have been happy with either gender, of course, but I didn’t want karma delivering me a snotty, know-it-all version of myself as payback!
Oh, how fun!! It’s funny what memories/gifts of the past stick with us! I remember a play kitchen and spending a lot of time playing with the pots and pans, stirring pretend food, etc! LOL I remember the joy/gratefulness but I don’t remember any other specific item from most of my childhood.
Oh, Rex—what a gorgeous boy you are! Those eyes!!! They’re what people refer to when they talk about “puppy-dog eyes”, you think? Like, “How can you say No to me?” My son’s dog’s eyes get a lot of attention but his are opposite of Rex’s — they’re steel blue and piercing and look fierce, hiding his goofy and playful personality!
I just showed my entire family the photos of Rex.
Also I have a photo of me one Christmas when I was 12 wearing a new leather jacket and…a red beret, scarf and gloves set. I actually think it’s in an album at my grandmother’s house. Next time I’m there I’ll take a photo.
I noticed in another post someone asked if Rex was wearing socks- no, those are his paws, tee hee! He is so, so cute.
Anyway, i loved this trip down memory lane. There were some strange things in the 70s and 80s! My grandparents had couches very, very similar to the ones in these photos. The one thing you had that I would have loved so much is the dollhouse. I was obsessed with little people and furniture and things like that but never had a dollhouse. My friend and I would build homes for our “little guys” (that’s what we called it, as in “Let’s play Little Guys”) out of blocks, which maybe was part of the fun. But I was always very, very envious of girls who actually had a dollhouse.
This was such a fun read; my face might hurt from all the Smiling. (Smiling is my favorite!)
I love that you actually remember your gifts and still have some of them.
I think I got a bike one year that was SO awesome; I loved riding my bike around the ‘hood.
Also once I got this amazing record player, I might have been 10 at the time, it was set up like a jukebox, (the size, not with interchangeable records) I loved listening to music so much, so having this big red record player was the Bomb!
REX IS THE BEST GIFT and I could cry seeing his happy face.
Your Sears catalog love reminds me of when we would get the Toys R Us catalog and circle all of the gifts we wanted for Christmas. SO MUCH FUN. I would also get the American Girl catalog and drool over all of the expensive dolls that I would never be able to afford myself.
One year, I got the game Guess Who? for Christmas and I maintain it was my best Christmas gift ever and made one of my aunts play it with me at least a dozen times during Christmas.
OMG, that photo of Rex. I mean he is VERY handsome and he knows it 🙂
I loved reading about your favorite gifts. I never had a Cabbage Patch Doll, although they were popular in Germany for a while… but I am more interested in the dog stuffed animal next to your doll. Because I had one exactly like it. They were called “Wauzies” in Germany… do you remember that name??
Oh, I’d forgotten about Pound Puppies!!! I had one! Or was it my brother? Anyway, my dearest possession as my Cabbage Patch Kid. Her name was Charlotte but I renamed her Candy. I lived in Australia back then and only later on realised “candy” was Amercian for “lollie”. Anyway, it seems like an appropriate name for a kid’s doll!
Jocelyn Wilma and Wallis Jules. I benefitted from an extra given to my mom’s nursing school roommate. No pound puppy, though. 🙂