The thing I never got for Xmas

in Random Crap

I was just thinking that I bet everybody has that one thing you REALLY wanted but never got and your neighbor had one but they were bored with it so you didn’t get to play with it as much as you wanted and even now you sort of still want one?

I’ll go first.  Sit and Spin.

You sit on it and twist the handle and spin until you throw up. It was magical.

I was trying to tell Hailey about it and she thought it sounded like something you’d yell at someone you don’t like and she has a point.  I looked up “adult sit and spin” and got some very questionable results so maybe she’s right.

Your turn.  What’s the one thing you never got but always wished you did?

PS. I found that picture on this pintrest page and now I’m nostalgic for all 80’s toys.

PPS. Unrelated but thought I’d mention because I keep seeing people tweet about it.  Right now there’s a big sale on Furiously Happy and the kindle version is less than $3. Same for the nook version  and iBooks.

 

428 thoughts on “The thing I never got for Xmas”

Read comments below or add one.

  1. My mom always refused to buy me Super Elastic Bubble Plastic because she feared I would spill it on her carpets. Considering what happened to her carpet when I decided to dissect Stretch Armstrong with a kitchen knife, I guess I can’t really blame her.

  2. Oh, such a list! I always wanted a Lite Brite, so I got my kids one and they were fairly unimpressed after the initial picture, so there’s that. And Baby Alive. I reallly, really wanted a Baby Alive. Now I think she’s kind of creepy, but that was the ultimate doll when I was little.

  4. It wasn’t a toy – I wanted this light blue dotted Swiss floor length dress they had for sale at Sears. I was at peak Little House on the Prairie/Little Women/A Little Princess obsession and I thought this dress was just beautiful, like something someone from one of those books would wear. It had a blue satin sash and a deep ruffle on the hem, a ruffled bodice, and poofy sleeves. I wanted that dress in the WORST way. When I opened the box that I thought would hold it, it turned out to be Toughskin jeans and t-shirts with kitten iron-ons. My mother’s answer when she saw how disappointed I was was that it was far too girly (I think the reality was that it was too expensive). I will admit to crying about it that night when I went to bed.

  5. My mom was always very anti fads. If I wanted a cabbage patch kid, I had to buy it myself. One year all I wanted was a Stawberry Shortcake doll. Fuck, I can still smell that cloyingly sweet scent. It’s the only thing I wanted.

    I got a Strawberry Shortcake coffee mug. I was 8. I bring it up yearly.

  7. My parents promised me a pony – they actually did promise me a pony, and I never got it. 30 years later and I am still bitter.

  9. A Furby! My friends who had them said they turned out to be creepy and annoying, but I still kind of want one.

  11. A Cabbage Patch Doll. I wanted one sooooo badly, but my parents couldn’t afford one. I still think they are adorable.

  12. Easy bake oven!! Always wanted one as a kid , to make all sorts of treats since I needed an adult to use the big oven. Woulda made my whole year but it was not to be.

  13. Easy Bake Oven. Instead, my grandmother bought me the Suzy Homemaker iron and ironing board, because what little girl doesn’t want to play IRONING?!?!?

  14. I really REALLY wanted a sodastream. My best friend had one, and it is a possibility that our friendship was partly based on access to fizzy drink and her mother’s Anzac biscuits (these are mostly a New Zealand thing, I think – so delicious!)

  15. A frog. It swam in your kiddie swimming pool. I went to a birthday party and they gave one to every kid but me and they looked cool as shit. I’m still mad.

  16. Slot cars. And now, though I don’t really want them, my husband threatens to get them for me anyway.

  17. I wanted a set of drums. I was desperate to have them. I have a hand that only works part time but I STILL would love to play drums. I’d glue the damn stick to my hand.

  19. Lava lamp! My dad saved our letters to Santa and I asked for a lava lamp every single year. My kind partner finally bought me one a few years ago.

  20. We always called it the Sit ‘n Spew. Always ended in vomit, so count yourself lucky. The present I wanted but never got was the GI Joe aircraft carrier. It was over 6′ long. My room was 10’x8’

  21. I also wanted a Sit & Spin. I never got one, but by the time my little sister did, I was mostly too big for it to be much fun. I also thought Creepy Crawlers would be so much fun to make, but alas, I never got those either.

  22. Two things… a Miata and/or a horse. Been on my Christmas list forever. Still want them. Suspect I’ll never get them.

  23. Easy Bake Oven, or a Mrs. Beasley doll, because I amthat old. My folks didn’t have a lot of money, I don’t remember ever feeling deprived. Now I think of cooking things with a light bulb I’m kinda glad I didn’t end up getting that oven (and possibly salmonella). 😆

  24. Every year I asked for a horse (my dad had made the mistake of getting me riding lessons when I was 6, and I just kind of never stopped going.) Every year I got a Breyer horse, and every year I still wished for a real horse. As an adult, I would still love a horse, but not all the responsibility and cost associated. Guess I’ll stick with lesson horses forever. : )

  25. When I was 15 I was offered my favorite horse. For free! But we would have had to pay to transport her, and then board her and pay for all of her stuff: food, vet visits, showing, etc. So it was no go. I can still see her in my mind’s eye. (We have one eye in our mind?) She was an Appaloosa whose spots never showed, so not valued for breeding. And I’m blanking on her name. That makes me feel guilty. . . (I can’t believe I have tears in my eyes about this more than 40 years later!) Quick, someone say something funny. Oh wait – her name was Baygirl!

  26. Weird, I didn’t type “showing.” Oh, that was SHOEING. Horse shoes. (No socks.)

  27. I always lusted after my friend’s Barbie doll, with the come-hither face and a body that has never existed in real life. She was sultry and forbidden and my mom flat out refused. We had Ginny dolls instead, dolls that actually looked like little girls and I did love them. But the lusting never went away.

  28. So, I just completely relived my childhood. So many good 80s toys. And so many bad 80s toys. I miss them all.

  29. A Barbie Dream House with working elevator. I ended up making one in my closet with shoe boxes and a McDonalds large French box with string thrown over the clothes rod for the elevator. Skip ahead many years, and I bought the Barbie Mansion for my daughter for Christmas (word of caution- don’t wait until Christmas eve to put these things together- there are more parts than you can ever imagine- and placing a zillion non-forgiving stickers on each piece causes a large amount of stress….) It broke my heart that she could care less about the mansion. It was the thing I really wanted as a little girl and spent a ton of time assembling it for her to play with as soon as she woke up Christmas morning. It’s in the attic. Hopefully, my Granddaughter will like it.

  30. OMG, Sit and Spin! I never had one of those but my best friend did. I had a Hippity Hop. 🙂

    But, the one thing I always wanted was an Easy Bake Oven. I grew up in the 70’s and the one from back then was pretty awesome. My friend had one and we loved making tiny cakes.

  31. I just noticed the post just above mine was about a horse too, also at 1:22. {twilight zone music?}

  32. I wanted a makeup table when I was 7. I still want one, but don’t have room for it. I’m 60.

  33. I did have a Pizza Hut oven though where I was able to warm up teeny tiny pizzas over a lightbulb. 🙂

  34. One year I got an easy bake oven from my cousin! I was ecstatic, the day after Christmas I started setting it up to make a cake and I asked my Mom for help. And she spent some time with it, then told me it was broken and wouldn’t work and that what was wrong with it would be wrong with all the others so we couldn’t get me a new one.

    I was too little to realize that my Mom had horrible anxiety about undercooked foods and was certain I was going to give myself food poisoning. For years when I would see other kids with them I’d marvel that they had gotten one that worked.

  35. I always wanted this toy called Milky the Cow. It was a cow that drank water and produced “milk” that you had to squeeze out of the cows udders. My mother refused. I found out recently that my aunt tried to buy it for me, but my mother stopped her. So disappointing…

  36. I asked for one of those racetracks with the remote control cars every year for Christmas for years, but never got one because “you’re a girl, and why do you want to play with cars like that?” The result was: every time we’d go to my (male) cousins’ house, that’s all I’d want to play with and they’d look at me like I had ten heads for spending hours by myself happily zooming cars in circles. (At least they let me have Matchbox cars – which I still own.) Today, I fix my own cars when they break (or call out mechanics on their shenanigans when I don’t want to get dirty), and much as I love Elon Musk for his brilliant mind, I wish he’d quit trying to develop cars that don’t need drivers because there’s nothing better than a sunny afternoon and a sports car with amazing handling on a back road that winds around just right. What can I say? Maybe if they’d bought me the darn racetrack and let me get it out of my system, I’d spend more time in the kitchen. I still like boys, fairies, and slutty Halloween costumes, isn’t that enough? 😉

  38. I can’t believe no one has mentioned one of those huge drivable cars. did any kid in the 80s ever actually get one or were we all pranked???

  40. OMG I had a sit and spin and it was the best, yes.

    I wanted an Atari.

    One year under the tree there was a big heavy box that we thought was the Atari. We were so excited! But actually my mom had wrapped up a big box with bricks in it as a joke. We got many other presents that year ofc but this is one of the reasons I do not think that practical jokes are funny and I never have played any joke on my kid. Nope.

  41. I wanted a bath sponge set where all the pieces looked like part of a sandwich. The soap was a pickle. Or the pickle was the soap. However you want to phrase it.

    I had a Sit and Spin. And my oldest child had one. And then we got rid of the thing before someone broke a tooth or got a concussion. When used properly, it’s perfectly safe. But who wants to use it as intended when you can STAND on it?

  42. Slip’n Slide! Living in the country in west Texas meant no lush grass lawn. My very reasonable parents realized the reality wouldn’t match the commercial.

  43. The Atari 2600 (goddammit, I’m old). It was THE thing to have at the time. Wanted it desperately. All the kids I knew had one. It was the only thing I even asked for. I would have been thrilled to have only one gift under the tree, if it had been that. I was so upset that Santa must have thought I hadn’t been good enough that year to be deserving of such a treasure (us being a very blue-collar, low-income family, I don’t think my parents’ Christmas budget was even half the price of one back then). Now, having three kids, and sweating over the ever-increasing price tags of the gifts they want these days, I totally get it.

  44. Legos. Lots of Legos. This was back in the day when Legos were just Legos and not “kits” to build specific things. My brothers got the Legos and the Lincoln Logs… I got Barbie dolls. I dismembered the Barbie dolls and buried them in the backyard (I sort of feel sorry for subsequent owners of that house). Every year, every gift-giving occasion, it was another Barbie doll.

    I bought myself a large bucket of Legos for my 25th birthday.

  45. A power wheels jeep. I was dying for one and I just imagined myself driving around down in my little kid mind. In hindsight, it was probably a good idea that they didn’t get me one. I was an extremely accident-prone child which lacked that healthy fear of death and injury, and it probably would’ve been an extremely expensive machine in which I destroyed the entire neighborhood and myself.

  46. Easy Bake Oven! Now I’m an adult and could just go to the store and buy one myself but it’s not the same!

  47. I really really wanted an Etch A Sketch but never got one. Having tried one as an adult I think it was just as well, ultra frustrating

  48. For years, I asked for a remote control car. Not even a specific one- any would do! And my brother kept getting them, like everyone thought it must have wound up on my list mistake because I was a girl.

  49. Pretty Cut and Grow, a doll that you could cut her hair and it would “grow” back (it was yarn hair. I it didn’t grow so much as you yanked more out of her head when you wanted to try to cut it again). My mother told me it was an impractical toy and I didn’t forgive her until I was much older when I realized that by “impractical,” she meant that she couldn’t afford to get it for me.

  51. Barbie Dream House. I’d cut the picture of that bad boy out of the Sears catalog EVERY. DAMN. YEAR. And never got it. And I’m still bitter.

  52. A ride on train that went around a track like they had on Silver Spoons. I got a bb gun instead. I never even shot you with it. I should have been on the extra nice list for that.

  53. I wanted an erector set. My parents never got me one because it was a toy for boys.

  54. Pretty much everything I wanted. i know I sound whiny, but my parents thought that for Christmas you should have TOYS, not the books I wanted, the clothes I thought would fit my more than appropriately chubby frame. I asked for lots of notebooks and got one of those cheesy pink diaries with the easy to pry open locks. I liked some of the toys I got, and I got a Sasha doll when I asked. My parents just didn’t understand that I liked odd dolls (Sasha was their limit) and books and wanted to tell stories. My little sister got a sit and spin, though.

  55. A Bedazzler! Because everything is better with rhinestones and studs- especially in the disco era! 🕺😄

  56. Creepy crawlers. A younger friend had one and we’d go over there and make plastic lizards. There was a knack to cooking it just enough.

  57. A rubber four square ball like they had at the schools. My mom did finally get me one… When I was 16. She said, “I know you always wanted one.”

  58. The one I still want is a dog. I just wanted a pet dog as a kid. Now I want/need an emotional support dog or psychiatric service dog. I have breeds picked out and everything. Given that I live with family who stigmatizes my psych disabilities, though, this probably won’t happen…

  60. @Nona – Been there, done that! A Slip-and-Slide on a gravel driveway does not make for fun times! To quote one of my all-time favorite movie characters as portrayed by one of my all-time favorite actors, “Pain! Lots of pain!” LOL

  61. It was the mid-90s. I wanted one of those hair wands that magically twisted and braided your hair. I never got one. I also never got the bedazzler that I wanted, but that is probably a good thing because if I ever got it – I would still be bedazzling today.

  64. I ALWAYS wanted one of those Barbie cars that you drive around the backyard but we lived on a hill..my sister’s friend’s little brother had the hot wheels version and I was super jealous

  65. I can’t remember what it was I wanted, but I do remember what we got instead. “We” (my brother and I) got a huge electric race car track. While I wasn’t overly girly, I know I didn’t want that, think that’s the year I realized santa wasn’t real.

  66. A horse. It’s still the first thing on my Christmas list every year. I have resigned myself (almost) to the knowledge that I will never get one.

  67. Oh, let me see… A Rolller Racer for sure! A Cabbage Patch doll (with the cornsilk hair of course), a Popple (I bought a couple off eBay a few years ago for myself!), and this was never actually possible, but do you remember the Toys R Us commercial where it was adults playing with adult sized kid toys? One of them was a giant version of the bouncy caterpillar thing with wheels that you ride on, and still to this day I’d pay good money for that if it were real. Sigh. 😁

  68. I wanted a tin gas station with attached parking garage. (And a horse) Being a girl, I got things like doll tea party sets. This was back in the 50’s.

  69. I never had my own Barbi doll. I only got hand me down Barbi’s from my 3 older sisters. They always came with cut off hair and magic marker or nail polish tattoos.

  70. I always played on the sit and spin at the doctors office, so god knows what hantavirus it had on it.

  71. I was a geek as a child, and grew up with the earliest generation of home video games. All my friends had an Atari or Intellivision in their house, and I repeatedly asked for one for two years. My parents were poor and it wasn’t something they could afford, so I made do with socks and some nice enough toys that I still loved (my X-Wing fighter was a true treasure).

    Then one year I opened my last gift, the “big gift” my parents always had for us at the end. They’d bought me an Atari 7800, the latest game system, which had been on sale. Like really cheap. They didn’t know why, and neither did I, but I was thrilled almost to tears. As soon as we were done cleaning up, I hooked it up to the television to play my first game.

    Nothing. A scrambled screen. Neither of the games it game with worked. It was broken out of the box. We took it back a few days later to get another one, but they were all gone. Turns out the 7800 had massive problems and the rest had been sent back because of all the returns. I got store credit instead, which I used on things I, to this day, still can’t remember.

    I never did get my Atari. When I became an adult, I had computers instead. Eventually I had my own kids, and we’ve had the PS2, PS3, X-Box 360, Wii and other systems, all of which are vastly superior to the home Atari systems. But yeah… I still remember that gift and the cycle from sheer joy to crushing disappointment, all in the space of fifteen minutes.

  72. From age 6 through age…11, probably, American Girl Samantha Parkington. I’ve found out since that my parents really, really tried to work the numbers but they’re just too $$$. I bought myself one on eBay when I was 32. Also her school, birthday, and Christmas outfits 😉

  73. It pleases me to see how many of my fellow 80s children just wanted a damned Easy Bake Oven. I wanted one SO BADLY and it just never happened. I think my mom was scared I’d hurt myself (I am terribly clumsy) but JOKES ON YOU MOM I HAVE A REAL OVEN NOW! And I do love to bake.

    My other dream item was the Barbie Dream House. The A-frame, in orange and yellow (NOT PINK) was and still is on my wishlist. I got the Barbie Dream Cottage. (Cue sad horn) It was not the same.

  74. I still remember the Green Ghost game. . . . it glowed in the dark, and the spinner made this great creepy noise as it spun around. I seem to recall there were trap doors your game piece could fall through, and a bunch of fluffy black feathers.

  75. Deluxe Barbie Dream House, the Barbie Townhouse with the elevator and the horse. I still think about that Dream House from time to time.

  77. For YEARS I wanted one of those Barbie styling heads and I never got one. I’m still a little sad about it. A lot sad.

  78. I remember really wanting a Cabbage Patch Kids doll hospital but not getting one. Maybe that would have triggered an interest in medicine that would have effected my career prospects.

  79. Reading the comments, I’m amazed how many people wanted the Easy Bake Oven. I had one. I think I used it twice – unsupervised (because I usually was). The stuff tasted terrible and the waiting was excruciating. You missed nothing, I promise! LOL One of my babysitters taught me to use the real oven when I was nine to make chocolate chip cookies, and my grandmothers all worked in bakeries. I have a “baking rep” to protect in my office now. (Can’t avoid genetics.) When I’m up until 2am (because I’ve procrastinated all evening) decorating cupcakes to please everyone at an office event the next day, I question the wisdom of all of it. Trust me, Easy Bake is the gateway drug. You should have no regrets.

  80. I always wanted an Easy Bake Oven. Had to live vicariously through my daughter when she got one at the age of 5.

  81. Snow. After moving from Denver to San Antonio in 1977 it was all
    I ever wanted!!! Had to wait until 1985 to get it in January, but on 12/7, seeing my boys in the snow… worth the wait!!!!

  84. I wanted these stufded animals that had babies inside and u never knew how many you would get. The worst part is they got a bunch for my cousins but never one for me! I was at the store the other day and found those cupcake princess dolls and I almost bought one for old times sake!

  87. My mom always went for the knock off brand so every year my best friend would get the BIG Brand named item and I had the weird looking 90% yarn doll- Except for the year I wanted a pound puppy! I wanted it so badly I drew pictures of the pound puppy I wanted and used all the stamps my mother bought for Christmas cards to send Santa a picture everyday from the day after thanksgiving (which was also the day the Elf moved into the chimney that f’er scared the living shit out of me!) that year I even braved going closer than ten feet to the fire place to yell tell Santa I was good and I want the black and white pound puppy for Christmas then booked up the stairs to my bedroom because I knew in my heart that it was out to get me which is why I always got the cheaper version of things. The moms of the neighborhood all had a moms night out and we were left with 80’s dads (if they aren’t bleeding or untrusting the game they are fine) mmm then my friend who was 4 at the time and had a thing with flying at two she rode her tricycle off a cliff like in ET, off topic the year of the pound puppy and all the moms gone she decided at four she could fly like Rudolph which we were watching hello what is Christmas without stop motion movies from the 70’s maybe earlier? Anyway turns out my mom got the hint about the pound puppy and there was one left..: dun dun dun… my mom locked eyes on it the same time another mom did and my mother in heals and a skirt suit took off grabbed it first but the woman grabbed onto it at the same time. My mom refused to let go and stared the woman down! It wasn’t the pound puppy I wanted but it wasn’t a knock off pound puppy! So the one gift I remember really really wanting I got but I still figured Santa and the Elf still didn’t like me because I had asked for the Dalmatian not the boring tan and brown spotted one. I also got a gift from the Elf that year it was a doll as tall as me in a green outfit with blonde hair that was TERRIFYING cementing in my brain that the elf truly hated me! It wasn’t for many years later that I found out about the pound puppy standoff! My Mom has passed now and I miss her everyday and myself being terminally ill with a short time left
    and unable to make the drive to see my dad. If I make it through the winter and I’m strong enough in the spring I will be giving myself the only gift I want this year which is to see my Daddy one last time 37 and 83 with neither of us with much time left and not really knowing what comes next I just want to hug him, Mom went passed away so nexpectedly and because of illness on both sides I hadn’t seen her for two years. You always think there’s more time.

  88. I wanted a flying turtle. It was a toy that you rode on and moved the handlebars back and forth to propel yourself. Never got it. Still kinda want one.

  89. A Snoopy Snow Cone Machine. I still gasp when I see one in a store every so often. I had a Sit and Spin and remember my friend and I getting on at the same time and spinning till we were ready to puke. I can’t believe I was ever little enough to get one on let alone with a friend.

  91. A baby goat. My mom promised me one for my 5th birthday. We lived on property big enough for a farm animal. She came home after work and told me she had my present outside because it couldn’t come in the house. I was so freaking excited, I hyperventilated. After I calmed down, she took me out to her car (she said my present was in there to keep it warm), and it was. . . not a goat.

    It was a guinea pig. A small, smelly rodent that I couldn’t frolick with in the backyard.

  95. Oh I also had one of the first American Girl dolls. Got it for Christmas when I was ten. Pretty sure my mother sold a kidney for it. I never asked, because I knew I was lucky to get what I got, but I secretly coveted all of Molly’s accessories and her tiny bed.

  96. I was the youngest by 8 years and the first child born in the US and my mother had access to the Sear’s Wishbook, so I pretty much had everything I could ever want and then some. But what I wanted and didn’t get was a Big Wheel. The little boy down the street got one and I was jealous so I managed to talk him into taking the front wheel off and he couldn’t figure out how to put it back on.

  97. A train set, specifically one that had battery powered trains and could be easily taken apart and reconfigured. This is why my kids now have so much Tomica… its for me really bwhahaha.

    Also, a remote control monster truck. My cousin had one and I coveted it. He’d never let me drive it, jerk.
    I got a cheap one as a gift a few years back but the kids kinda mangled it. Alas.

    I also coveted lego. The sons of my mother’s friend had a whole drawer under their bed FULL of lego and most of all, MINIFIGURES! mini figures were so dang rare, I mean you were lucky to get ONE with a big set back then. I loved them. I wanted them.
    I didn’t have much lego because it was expensive. I had one of those basic boxes and my father gave me a set he got as a secret santa gift but it had very litlte lego in. It did have a space man mini figure though.
    aaaand this is also why my kids have so much lego.

    Basically, this is why we have kids right? to give them the things we wanted and then vicariously enjoy them.

  98. An Easy Bake oven. And given the number of folks with the same answer, I am realizing the power of advertising. I can still see the commercial!

  100. My dad’s buddy worked at Marx Toys. He brought seconds to the house on Christmas eve & they got wrapped up. (There were 5 of us) I don’t remember what I got, but I remember that the twins (Fred and Fran) got these metal horses that reared up and did other things. I was SO mad. I was, and still am, the horse lover in the family. I haven’t looked to see if there’s any on eBay, haven’t thought about it now. My mom told me she loved that he brought us the toys, but he NEVER brought any goddamn batteries. On another note, for Winter Solstice, I became the proud owner of an amazing complete horse skull I plan on making a Mari Lwyd out of. Go google or YouTube that one. 😊

  101. My mom recently asked me this question. My answer was the ride-on Barbie Jeep. And it’s a present I never asked for because I knew my parents wouldn’t go for. Both expensive and dangerous. It was in the same category as trampolines.

  102. I had a sit-n-spin. It was the bomb. My mom said she hated it because it made so much noise. I always brought it right to where she was whenever the phone rang. I guess I was a brat, but I think it was more anxiety than wanting to bug her. I have 3 things I wanted and never got…Barbie doll-my mom thought it promoted an unrealistic body image, Stretch Armstrong-neither of my parents could understand the attraction (I still want one), and Cabbage Patch Doll- my mom thought they were ugly and that their back story was ludicrous. She just told me where babies really came from right from the start.

  103. I had two – ALSO a Sit & Spin (my cousins had one and I LOVED it) and a mobile vet clinic toy that I circled for years in the Wish Book and never got. It’s funny how that stands out – my parents were really good at Christmas, but somehow that one toy never made it under the tree and almost 40 years later I still think of it wistfully.

  104. Now that I think about it…..I like Hailey’s interpretation better than any toy….received and played with or not. I always used to play with my older brother’s toys, the neighbors’ toys…what fun memories!

  105. A cabbage patch doll. One year, I thought my mother had finally relented. It was a cabbage patch doll alright. A homemade one with yarn hair. Totally not the same thing, mother.

  106. Thunderbird 2. I remember sitting on a department store Santa’s knee and asking for a Thunderbird 2. I even drew him a picture. He’d never heard of one. Idiot.

  107. Wonder Woman Underoos. I’m 42 and I’m still sad that I never got Wonder Woman Underoos.

  108. I, too, wanted a Lite Brite. And slot cars.. that were ‘boy toys’ so never happened. And now I just can’t justify the expense of either, even though I would still be delighted with them.

  109. I wanted a Dancerina doll. It was quite a large doll, that you held on to balance her, and she danced ballet-type twirly dance steps. I got a different, EXTREMELY PRETTY Bride doll instead. I liked her very much, once I gave her a chance-she wasn’t Dancerina after all. I had my mom set a place at our dinner table for her. We served her dinner-tiny pieces of whatever we were having- on a saucer. I was about 7 or 8. When no one was looking, I ate hers too-and pretended she ate it.

  110. I wanted a princess’s carrown! I read that Prince Ranier had horses and cars and a private zoo! I wanted him to wait for me…but NO! He had to go and marry Grace Kelly. I was understandably crushed. To this day I…oh, never mind.

  111. A big wheel! I’d still take one mow my goddamn lawn if it were my size. Both of my brothers had one and it was pretty rare that they’d let me ride theirs. Plus I w always wanted to join in on the races and those terrifying trips down steep grassy hills.

  113. Moon shoes. Though it was probably for the best. I am so uncoordinated and have such poor balance that I probably (definitely) would have broken my ankle.

  114. Wow! I do recommend checking to see if autocorrect has messed up you post before submitting. It should read “I’d take one now if it were my size. “ there is an auto fill on my phone that changes mow to “mow my goddamn lawn “ so when ever I mistype now that’s what happens. My apologies.

  115. I really wanted a jean jacket. I wasn’t allowed to have one, because my brother lost his. For the record, I never lost any jacket!

  116. Teddy Ruxpin. He was just too expensive. And it was ok until a more well-off relative gave me a tape meant to be played by him, assuming I already had one. That just rubbed it in. Still slightly bitter…

  118. An American Girl doll… I had a knockoff and some of the books, paper dolls, and a cookbook, but never a real American Girl doll. Those things are a racket!

  119. I always wanted a horse or a dog. My mum seemed to hate dogs and a horse was out of our budget. I can say that after 33 years of asking I finally got my dog. Adopted an ex racing greyhound and he’s been worth the years of waiting. Don’t give up, find what you want when you can.

  121. I always wanted an erector set. I still want one. But that was a boys toy, not for girls. I always imagine who I could have been had I been given the chance at an erector set. I’m deeply scarred by this. Thanks for bringing it up.

  122. It’s kinda funny; a lot of the comments here are stuff that I got… second hand. Which was still perfectly fine, but the Snoopy snow cone machine had been washed so many times that one day I noticed that the stuff there looked an awful lot like snoopy. Because I didn’t know it was. I couldn’t tell. My Garfield and pound puppies sheets wore down into white sheets, too, haha.

    Those “real cars” for kids kinda sucked, but my yard had a lot of hills, so it was probably more that than anything else. The same basic reasoning is why I made my dad take my training wheels off. Going slow and getting stuck is no fun.

    I think my biggest “want but didn’t get” was the n64. When my friend and I were playing Barbies I kept suggesting that they “go to the movies.” Which means “set them up so they’re watching us play video games.”

    I also wanted this one specific tiger toy that my friend had (Jonny Quest, from the “Safari Stryker Hadji and Deep Sea Race” because you KNOW I’ve googled it a bunch and considered buying one for myself off ebay). It could fit a dog bone from a barbie set in its mouth perfectly. Also the top of a bottle of soda. My Ken doll’s pet was Simba from the Lion King, but he couldn’t fit a dog bone in his mouth, or basically anything. His legs moved though so he could skateboard really well. I also found a tiger once that was pretty good, but it had that soft texture on it, and we were playing with our Barbies & friends in the sink… and his fur came off. You couldnt put ANYTHING in that tiger’s mouth, though. It was totally closed.

    Oh and basically all of the littlest pet shop from the early 90s.

  124. Not exactly what you asked for, but it was in the 80s – my daughter always wanted a Smooshie House. I wouldn’t buy it because it was severely overpriced, and there were plenty of other things she wanted and she did have Mapletown toys which were much cuter anyway. It showed up on the list for several years. Finally, when she was 8 or 9 and really too old for it, I found it deeply discounted on a clearance rack and bought it and I have one of the greatest Christmas morning pictures of her excited face when she opened it and yelled “my Smooshie House!” She pretty much never played with it, and I kept it all these years since it was in pretty good shape and it is now (along with the Fisher Price food sets) one of the most requested toys when her 3 year old son and his cousin come to play at Grandma’s..

  125. Dag gumming it was a big wheel! EVERYONE had one on our street but me. Mom said cars would run me over cause they were so low to the ground. STOOPID.
    Also, Pinterest 80’s toys is a rabbit hole!

  126. GoGo Boots (yeah, I’m THAT OLD)! Begged for about 3 years at every present getting opportunity. Was told I’d look like a “French Whore.” Apparently there is some distinction in evilness based on a whore’s nationality, French being the ultimate. Never got the boots,but it’s been a great joke between me and my sister whose virtue was also spared by the lack of awesome white vinyl zip up go-go-ness

  128. I desperately wanted white Nikes with a colored swoosh (preferably navy blue). I told my Mom, and she said, “What if they don’t have blue?” Knowing how my Mom always buys the wrong thing, I tried to avoid giving her any other color choices, but she was adamant, and finally I said, “Well, I guess yellow would be ok.” After much pleading for these shoes, one night my Mom came home with…Glow-in-the-dark-Three-Mile-Island-Flourescent YELLOW running (not everyday) Nikes, with a powder blue stripe, and complained mightily about how expensive they were (significantly more expensive than the actual shoes I wanted, BTW). They were hideous. They were NOTHING like what the other kids were wearing. But she wouldn’t return them, because she “didn’t have the time.” (I was not old enough to drive, and had no way to get to the store.) I had to wear them to school because my other shoes were worn out, and all the other kids made fun of me. And, because I was wearing trail-running shoes in gym class to play basketball, I also tore a ligament in my ankle after landing on the side of my foot coming down from a jump shot. Years later, in college, I told this story to a family who had taken me in as one of their own, and they surprised me with the exact shoes I had always wanted for my birthday present. <3

  129. I wanted a big wheel tricycle and a glo worm badly. I had an easy bake oven though- it’s still at my mom’s house.

  131. I had an Easy Bake Oven, and I wanted the refills for the items! You bake two cakes and the cookies, then what?

  132. i always wanted legos. i got lincoln logs instead. NOT THE SAME parent! my kids get legos.

  133. I desperately wanted a rocking horse. Also boots and a gun belt to go with my cowgirl outfit. My little sister wound up with three rocking horses. I tried not to resent her, preferring to resent my parents instead. If you ask my 95-yr-old mother, she’ll say I still hold a grudge over it. Maybe. 😀

  134. American Girls dolls. Any of them; I didn’t care which. No luck because hello ridiculously expensive money black hole. I did get the paper dolls though!

  136. I was looking at that Pinterest page and OMG. I had some of those toys. We picked up the Merlin at a garage sale one time for like a buck (this was in the early-mid 90s I think) and it still worked like a dream. I also seem to remember at one point having a Knight Rider-themed Big Wheel. A lot of the toys we got for birthdays or Christmas were second hand, which didn’t matter to me because even though my siblings were like “Oh god, why can’t we just get something NEW for a change?”, nerdy little me was all about this nerdy stuff. 🙂 I think the one thing that I really wanted for Christmas one year that I never got was a She-Ra doll. She-Ra was the shiznit, man.

  138. I am 41 years old. When I was in the 6th grade there was this flat Rubix cube puzzle toy that I wanted so much! I was overjoyed to open it under the tree. My Mom wanted to play with it first. She broke it within 30 seconds. I never got a replacement for it.

    Tldr:I actually got my coveted toy but my Mother broke it before I ever got to touch it.

  139. Colorforms Castle Dracula set. The most horrible part was that MY BROTHER got it from my aunt and uncle while I got a f-ing CURLING IRON (did not want and hadn’t asked for), because they didn’t believe that it was something a girl would want. I had to SNEAK PLAY WITH IT, because he and I didn’t really get along back then. I still remember the feeling of betrayal!

  142. Blocks. Those wooden blocks that sometimes came painted in basic colors, but oftentimes were just wooden, in all the lovely shapes, rectangles, squares, triangles, arches, half circles, cylinders… but I never ever got any. I was so scared of going to the dentist, but in spite of my fear, I always looked forward to time in the waiting room because they had such a wonderful set of blocks. One year when I was 12, I told my parents that was the only thing I wanted, but still, no luck. I bought a huge set for my daughter’s first birthday and ended up being the only one who played with them until she was about 3 and I told her she had to play with something besides books all the time. Then she started taking an interest. She’s 8 now and still plays with them sometimes.

  144. A phone in my room. God, I wanted it SO BAD. My mother flat out refused to provide it. I still don’t have one, and I’m 40 LOL

  145. Every year I thought I was getting a Mickey Mouse hoppity ball (where you sit on it and bounce) because there was a box with a picture of one on it on a shelf in our basement. Years later, I found out that in that box is where my parents hid our presents from Santa! I am too trusting and not nosy enough…

  146. A skateboard. They got me skates. This was before th 80s and they were the crappy metal kind that go over your tennis shoes. I tried them, nearly broke my neck, took them apart and made my own skateboard out of them and a board I found in the garage. Much more fun. No broken bones, definitely no broken neck :-). I still can’t skate with skates and I don’t care.

  147. Barbie Dream House! Though to be honest, my parents saved all year and no matter how broke we were I always had a nice Christmas present. The dream house was just ridiculously big and expensive.

  148. Optimus Prime. And the Voltron where the parts really came apart into the lions. I’m amazed that I appear to be the only one to have wished for robots! 😀

  149. Legos. Parents said they were for boys. Finally one Christmas they bought a set, My bratty younger sister got up and opened all the presents and claimed her name was on the present. My mom would have disagreed but, didn’t want to spoil Santa Claus for us. I still resent her for this. Now I buy them for my adult boys, nerds.

  151. First – great that there’s a sale on Furiously Happy but having read it, that book (Kindle) should ALWAYS be at least $15. Therapy didn’t help me half as much as that book! 👏👏
    Also, OMG – we are soulmates! I love the Sit n Spin – in the 80’s and Hailey’s adult version! 🤣🤣I had four older brothers who also took great glee in powering the merry go round at the Park with me inside, just short of being slung off into the sun. Good times. I really liked them back then. 🤔
    The one thing I always wanted, and still never get unless I shop for myself, are clothes that aren’t at least 5 trends behind. Remember Saddle Shoes and Member’s Only jackets? Oh my, the struggle was REAL! But I only ever received them as hand-me-downs after they were so far out of style people snickered behind my back. There was also the Fringe-Age when a beautiful suede jacket had fringe all over and I’d spin in circles to watch them go. That was my very first adult purchase, and yet even though Wilson’s Leather still sold them, it was at the end of the Wilson’s Rage, so of course, still behind the trend. Really I just wanted clothing that did not come in a giant black trash bag from some random stranger or Family Dollar, cuz dark dark blue jeans with yellow stitching visible to the naked eye is just painful for a preteen girl. Or any girl.
    Merry Christmas, Jenny! I hope you get something good! And buy Hailey some fringe – it’s back in again!

  152. I always wanted Lego. But my parents said Lego was “for boys” and wouldn’t buy it. A few years ago I finally bought myself some Lego and had heaps of fun putting it together AND despite everything my parents feared – it didn’t make me grow a penis

  153. When I was little, (in the 50’s) I so wanted a Betsy Wetsy Doll. I didn’t get one. I was so jealous that my best friend did get one. I took my generic doll and poked a hole between her legs. Then I could put her in a bucket, squeeze, and it would draw water up inside her. Then I could squeeze it back out. Voila! Betsy Wetsy! I must have given the doll to my niece at some time, because when they cleaned out her childhood home she found it and gave it back to me. Where the hole was it had turned black. Gangrene!

  155. Hockey gear! It was the 70s, in our house, girls did NOT play hockey so it never happened. My brother got the gear but only went to hockey once – he hated it. Broke my heart to see the gear get sold. I started playing in 2005 with a bunch of old girls, our team is called Motherpuckers and we have a blast every Thursday night in the winter. I’m not very good but I sure have fun.

  156. Except for riding my bike, I was a thoroughly unathletic child. But how I longed for a pogo stick. Never happened.

  157. A dog.
    Didn’t get one.
    But finally did because my kind- hearted mother picked up a starving stray puppy and brought him home and he became my dog and stayed until he died of old age.
    Happy ending. And I have been a dog person ever since.

  158. There was a doll. It was blond, with eyes that opened and shut (I’m over 60, toys were a LOT less complicated), it had a soft body and I wanted it more than anything I had ever wanted in my entire 6 years of life.

    Santa brought it. I was speechless. We each got 1 ‘major’ toy and a bunch of stocking stuffers, the doll was my big present.

    My younger sister cried and threw a fit because she wanted it.

    Not only did I have to hand it over I had to tell her Merry Christmas.

    More than 50 years later this guy I am married to walked in one Christmas Eve and handed me a gift bag. When I saw the doll inside, so very like the one I had to give up, I was speechless. And because he’s just that good he handed me a tissue and let me cry.

  160. Always wanted a sit and spin. Never got one 🙄BUT when I became a parent is was on the gift list! Although my kids enjoyed it my sister and I giggles as well. (Both of us in our 20’s)

  161. I wanted a sit and spin too!
    But apparently as a baby I puked enough be on par with a certain horror film character.
    So the grownups in the house were firmly against the sit and spin.
    My brother never got the plastic big wheel because my Mom couldn’t stand the noise they made on the sidewalk.
    I did have that baby with the blue eyes that lit up when you pressed her palms. I was afraid the dark so they gave me this doll with a huge head and weird blue glowing eyes.
    When my nephew got one of the first glow worms I was a little jealous even though I was in college because it was so much cuter than glowing blue eyed girl doll.
    Merry Christmas!

  162. A cabbage patch doll cowgirl with a horse – only I got it, from a family friend, and my parents returned it. 　

  163. A computer! I always wanted to have onetwhen I was a kid. In that time our neighbors had one and it was still not very common to have a pc (where I was born)

  164. I lusted for Tarzan my entire childhood. Ironically, Tarzan came on tv every Sunday around the time that we got home on from church. I wailed and wailed for a chimpanzee. I was too bashful to insist Santa bring me Tarzan! My mother eventually found a stuffed animal version chimpanzee that was real looking enough to placate me. I wonder what she would have done if I had insisted on getting Tarzan! Probably another Ken doll in Tarzan dress.

  165. The 1979 Kenner Millennium Falcon. I still have my action figures and my 12 inch Leia, but the ship never made it under the tree. EVER – it was actually the only thing I asked for. I was lucky, my grandfather was a manager at the PX on post and anytime the Star Wars figures came in, he would pull out two of each figure and bring them home to my cousin and I. The only thing I wanted for xmas was that Millennium Falcon….but instead I got Tonto and his horse and a 12 inch Leia with impossible to put back together hair buns!

  166. A pair of Doc Martens shoes!!! I asked for them for two Chriatmas’ In a row at least. One Christmas my parents wrapped my present in a shoe box, so I got my hopes up, only to be disappointed with whatever was in the box (I don’t remember now).

  167. The Big Wheel with a hand brake that let you “drift”. My folks thought it too boyish and dangerous. ?

  168. A child’s kitchen. My mom gave me a cardboard box and a crayon and said, “use your imagination.” It worked. I turned out to be a child with a large imagination. And a grudge.

  169. An easy bake oven. I wanted one sooo bad but my parents said they were silly. Then, years later, they got one for my little sister (who is quite a bit younger than me). You can bet I played with her easy bake oven.

  170. I actually got the Easy-Bake oven. So my mother was gifted for her birthday with a cake I made in secret for her on my bedroom floor – it featured blue food coloring and a LOT of dog hair!
    The thing I always wanted but never got was a Mousetrap game.

  173. Tweety Bird tennis shoes. They had them at Gemco (anybody still remember that one?) but I think they stopped at a size below mine. I didn’t have freakishly big feet or anything, and we moved from that area when I was six, so they were stupidly missing a segment of the population with that decision. No wonder Gemco went out of business (although I really wish they had Geranimals for adults because I suck at matching clothes.)

  174. I wanted the original Sega Genesis when it first came out. I loved Sonic the Hedgehog and would go to a neighbor’s house to play hers whenever I had the chance. I honestly think it was the only reason we hung out.

  175. I wanted a real, live moose. We lived in Canada’s far north and I thought Santa should have no problem making that happen. The half wolf-half dog puppy I was given was adorable but, sadly, not a moose. I still want a moose but am willing to let it run free and not live in my apartment.

  176. Kind of a cheat, because I eventually got it… When I was around 7 (mid-70s), I desperately wanted Lite Brite. I didn’t get it, but my best friend who lived up the street did, and I was So. Very. Jealous. (And I hated her a little, because I was 7) 20 years later, we were chatting in her parent’s kitchen when we were all in town for Thanksgiving, and I told her the story. She and her mother dug that 1970s Lite Brite out of her parent’s attic and gave it to me for Christmas–I played with it all morning! 20 years after that, she is still my best friend. 🙂

    (This is the best thing ever. ~ Jenny)

  177. To this day I hate board games. Every single Christmas I’d get one or two, but as an only child I never had anyone to play them with and my parents said “not right now” most times I’d ask them to join. I got very good at playing all the pieces or player roles by myself. My parents were also very adept at getting me the “almost what yoy want” gift… like I wanted a Cabbage Patch and I’d get a doll that looked similar except she wasn’t real and you could tell because her body was made of nylon and her skin colour didn’t match. Or I wouldn’t get a Barbie but I’d get a similar doll who was just this close to fitting real Barbie clothes. And I was so excited when I got my first “almost” Walkman except you couldn’t move the tape player when it was running or the tape would fall out. All the toys I really really wanted were boy toys too. In those days, as I’ve read other comments on here, that was just so frowned upon. My goodness, but I would’ve flipped over a real slot car set or some hot wheels tracks. My cousins were all boys and thought I was pretty neat “for a girl” when I’d be more than willing to play with all their toys with them. These days, I buy my kid the real versions if I get the toy at all and we don’t have “boy” or “girl” toys here. Funny thing is, my kid couldn’t care less about toys! She likes clothes and books! I, however, still love toys!

  178. I asked for a baby elephant at the age of 5. Not for Christmas. Just in general. I look at the comments and realize my brother and I were pretty damn lucky as kids. And still are. So while I never got the elephant, sadly…I’m pretty blessed.

  179. Dear all.
    I pretty much got everything I wanted, except for a horse. I was upset and moped to the point of “a kingdom for a horse”.
    My parents arranged for me to stay at the grandparents of a friend who bred purebreds (not the racing) kind. As a teen I realized that they got up at dawn to feed, how much work it was and that the tradeoff was not compatible with a an urban lifestyle.

  180. I wanted a play house. What I had in mind was a realistic two-story play house for kids. You know, the ones that are insanely expensive and not at all realistic for Christmas (or anytime really unless you’re super rich). My parents got me this plastic tent-like house instead. I was so mad at Santa for bringing me the wrong thing. I vividly remember my mom trying to console me and convince me that Santa could never bring me something like that. I ended up enjoying the little house they got me but I will always remember how crushed I was that day.

  181. I desperately wanted a “Baby Alive”. They turned out to be super gross because the fake food would get stuck inside the doll and mold and rot, but at 6 I thought it was the coolest thing ever.
    What I got instead was a “Talking Baby Tender Love”.

  182. I was lucky enough to have a sit and spin and I sat and spun for hours! It didn’t take much to entertain us in the 80s! Maybe there was more lead in the water back then. :-/

  183. Snoopy Snowcone Maker. To add salt to the wound, when I became a parent, neither of my children were remotely interested in having one. Next year I’m putting it on my amazon wishlist just to see if Mom will actually cave this time.

  185. Legit Barbie accessories. Hell, even Legit Barbies. We had poseable Barbie-like dolls and accessories, but they were some off-brand. They played as well as Barbies, i’m sure. But I was always a little embarrassed by them. I feel kinda bad about that NOW. Not that I never had the legit ones; that I was embarrassed by the alt ones. Hmm.

  186. I wanted a puppy SOOOOO badly. I begged and begged. My uncle gave us a beagle pup when I was 15. I loved him, but we got him in the summer. Now I’m the adoption coordinator for a dog rescue, have three dogs that were my foster failures and can get a new dog anytime I want.

  187. One of those kid-sized cars! Despite having a working, full sized, genuine vehicle, I still really wish I got to drive one of those cars. The in-home daycare I went to as a little kid had one for her daughters, but we (daycare kids) were never allowed to play with it & I wanted to soooooo bad!

  188. Barbie doll, Sit and spin, Legos, Erector set. My kids got all that stuff for sure. My worst Christmas, even worse than my 16th birthday, was the year I came home from college and my parents (well, really, my mother) gave me a model of a Hess gas truck. It really hit home that my parents didn’t know me at all. I cried, and had to pretend I was upset because my sister wasn’t there. I still don’t know where that came from. What was she thinking? That was 35 years ago and it still bothers me. As I am writing this, I am realizing that at 16, I should have begun to understand that my mother really didn’t like me, and that would have helped make sense of all the things that occurred later in life. I have been saying that I am my mother’s fourth favorite child, and there are only three of us. I don’t think it is really a joke. Well, thanks for the therapy and new insights.

  189. oh. My. God Jenny!! That Pinterest page! Awesome. So fucking awesome. I saw some stuff that made me happy. I have 2 Alf dolls and a glow worm if you wanna buy them. 😉 or anyone. I Just want something to open Christmas day this year. I hope you have a lovely holiday! Xoxo

  191. There was a doll on display at Rich’s Department Store in Atlanta. I could see it every time we took the up escalator. I was obsessed with that doll and it’s ante-bellum dress and bonnet. The price was (gasp) $37 which was more than my mother’s weekly household allowance. (This was the ’50s). My father thought I should have it, my mother said absolutely not. She won. No other doll ever came close to that one.

  192. A real working telescope. My neighbor had one and I wanted one desperately. Yeah, I was a super geeky girl. I also wanted high top sneakers–had to wait until I was 21 and I was out of the house to buy them. My mom felt their were too “boyish”.

  193. I wanted a ten-speed but I got a loser three-speed. Now I have a hybrid and I want a road bike. I guess it is my destiny to never have the bike I want.

  195. I’m another person deprived of an Easy Bake Oven. And a Bop Bag. And then later, Guess designer jeans. It is amazing I even talk with my Mom anymore.

  196. I can’t believe how many of these things I wanted! There were eight kids in our family, so we always got a lot of generic versions of things, which were never good enough to brag about at school. I realize as an adult how crappy a lot of these toys were, but man, when you’re a kid, you totally buy into the hype. Thanks for all the memories this brought back!

  197. Baby Alive. After expecting her under the tree for a couple of Christmas’ I finally got her. I was so excited — until my parents said that she can get bugs and I didn’t really want a doll that could get bugs did I? So she was returned to the store and replace by a generic doll. It’s still traumatic… 😐

  198. I always wanted the Barbie Dream House. I got the knock-off and the Malibu Beach van. Not the same, Mom.

  200. A Bonnie Braids doll. She had two short little blond braids but you could pull them out to make them longer or unbraid them to give her curly locks. I got one but her body was rubber and it rotted in the summer heat. About a hundred years later, my brother found one in good condition at a thrift store and bought it for me. Bless his heart.RIP Chuck!

  201. I guess I was pretty lucky because I got most of the toys I really wanted including an Easy Bake oven, all the Creepy Crawlers sets including Creeple People, Fun Flowers, and Incredible Edibles, a chemistry set (with which I promptly started a small fire in the basement), a Lite Brite and a Spirograph but the one i NEVER got was a rock tumbler. When my Dad discovered you had to tumble the rocks for HOURS he decided it was a waste of electricity.

  202. My sister always wanted (honestly, I think she still wants) a Glow worm. Her 4 children stare at her in confusion whenever this comes up.
    I asked her what I never got & she informed me I always got what I wanted. She may still be bitter. In a loving way.

  203. Our church nursery had a sit and spin, so I got a weekly workout. But I really wanted one at home. I think that sit and spin was the main pro for Christianity in my pre-10 year old years. Alas, if they made an adult version perhaps I’d still be a believer.

  204. I wanted a sock monkey. I thought for sure my grandmother had got me one after asking me what I wanted and that beingyhe only thing I told her. I got a stack of Lotto tickets and a pink (a color I hated) sweater that had lace around the neck. It was hideously girly and everything I hated and hiding the disappointment was super hard.

  205. A brown leather bomber jacket, the year I was 15 {hey, 90’s fashion, what can I say??} I hinted so hard all year and when Christmas rolled around I actually came across one stashed in the house. I was SO EXCITED, but it turns out it was for my father. Really Mom??? >..<

  207. I had a sit and spin! I think it was at my grandpa’s house. Whhhhyyyy did you link to that pintrest page?! I can’t stop reminiscing now. To be totally honest I was a fairly spoiled child and owned most of the “in” toys at the time… Cabbage Patch doll, Care Bears, Lite Brite, Polly Pocket, Hungry Hungry Hippos, Operation, all the board games (Candyland, Sorry, etc), plus the dollhouses and such. My house was sort of the go-to for all the neighborhood and school kids because of that. I’m an only child, but always had plenty of kids around because I had the best toys! The only thing I can remember really really wanting and not getting was a puppy. At one point we even had one of those kid’s goal-tracker things hung up, I can’t remember what I was supposed to do but at the end I was supposedly getting a puppy. Never happened. I did eventually get one, at like age 14, but that was long after the goal-tracker disappeared.

  208. Loooove the St and Spin!! I always wanted a Ken doll, but I’m actwuly glad I never did. The smooth area can be very confusing lol.

  211. I wanted my dog back. When I was finally released to my father at age 14, the stepfather told me my dog was a ‘family dog’ and didn’t belong to me. To the end of her days they tortured her asking ‘where’s Dat’ and watching her run looking for me, it tortured me too. She was my best friend, no matter how long it’s been I wish so much he didn’t split me and my dog up. I hope she forgives me for having to leave that abusive home, I miss her.

  212. Easy Bake Oven. I’m the oldest of five children, and it was always outside our budget. Really, I think my mom just couldn’t justify buying something that she viewed as such a waste of money.

  213. Lite Brite. It has been over 40 years, And my jealousy still sits so very near the surface. 🙂

  214. Count me in the Easy Bake Oven-deprived camp. Even though my mom would let me use the regular oven to bake from age 10 on, it still wasn’t the same as cooking with a lightbulb.

    A family friend had the Sit and Spin, so I got to throw up whenever I wanted. 😉 I was a lucky duck because I had Light Bright AND a Hoppity Hop! 🙂

  215. A Cabbage Patch Kid. My friend across the street had one and I wanted one so badly! But my mom thought they were ugly and refused to buy me one.

  216. My family isn’t too fond on the tradition of gift-giving for Christmas. I’d see all my friends getting gifts and whenever they asked me what I got … I had to say “Nothing lol” and try to divert the attention off of me. So basically all I’ve wanted for Christmas was just a gift I guess. It could’ve been anything. I just wanted a gift.

  218. During my elementary school years, I wanted desperately for a Jack Russell puppy, but no dice. My parents seemed to think a few Wishbone VHS tapes were an appropriate substitute. I’m now have a menagerie, so it all worked out 🙂

  219. I wanted a Lite Brite. I still think about getting myself one when I see them in thrift stores. I also bothered my parents for a year to get me one of those stuffed animal cats that had kittens that came out of a Velcro pouch inside it. I can’t remember what they were called. They could have either 3, 4 or 5 kittens inside and it was a surprise until you opened it. I finally got one for Christmas, but I was so disappointed that mine only had 3 kittens, because my friend had one with 5. But I got over it and spent many hours playing with them. My life as a cat lady began early. Lol.

  220. An easy bake oven…I actually did finally get one from a garage sale and my stepdad cut off the cord. He said I might burn down the house. I mean what was the point if I couldn’t bake anything? My brother bought one for my daughters when they were little and I was so disappointed by the crappy cake it made. So It’s always been a huge disappointment!
    I also always wanted the Snoopy snow cone machine but it never happened.

  221. A Big Wheel! My neighbor friend had one and let me use it, and it was MAGICAL. Mom said I was too tall for it (she was kind of right – I was a full head taller than all my friends and had long legs – so when I rode my friend’s Big Wheel, my knees were up to my chin), but oh how I wanted one anyway.

  222. a pizzelle maker. Wanted one for so many years — shoot, I still ask for it every year. Someday…

  223. In the ‘50’s and 60’s, I always asked for a bunny jacket. I never got one. In the fall 1982, I was hospitalized for a very serious lung infection, one related to Legionnaires disease. I’d been there about a week when my dad very casually said, “I picked up your Christmas present last night. Your bunny jacket in hanging in the hall closet.” My father always swore that I got well so I could wear my jacket. Even My doctor was surprised at my sudden progress.

  224. Oh, this is easy –

    I wanted a varsity jacket in high school. And it wasn’t that unreasonable; it was a warm (wool) coat, I could wear it anywhere (not just school), and it wasn’t outside my parents’ budget.

    My parents knew I wanted a varsity jacket.

    A box of the right size appeared under the xmas tree a few weeks before the big day. I was like, “they didn’t… or maybe they did!” It was an exciting few weeks.

    And it turned out to be… a typewriter (back when dinosaurs ruled the earth) because I was going to college the next year.

    It was practical, and I knew I shouldn’t be unthankful, but… I really wanted that varsity jacket.

    Wrote all sorts of papers (including my senior thesis) on the typewriter, too.

    Earlier this year I was cleaning out my parents’ house and found the typewriter. Man, I gave it a stinkeye. Just for a second.

  225. BTW – we got Easy Bake Ovens as kids (I’m surprised at how many people posted about that). It was great until you ran out of the mixes, and your parents shut down that little habit. 🙁

  226. My friend had what I think was the dirtiest dirty trick played on her when she was a kid. Her dad put what was (hopefully) a lare pile of dog poop by the Christmas tree and told her the pony ran away! Sadistic asses, some dads were.

  227. I asked my worthless half brother for a life-sized teddy bear when I was six. I never got one, so I bought one my damn self last Black Friday. I’m 33.

  228. The Male Parent collected old books but never read them, which seems like some kind of sin. One wall of our living room was built-in bookcase and no one cared what I read, which is awesome and I read all manner of things by the time I was 18. But the one thing I wanted, really, really wanted, was a medium-sized gold-patterned book called The Wishing Ring Man. I think the author name on the spine was Smith, which makes sense, because it was a fake. All blank pages, but soft, high-fiber content pages. Apparently rich people bought these fake books and put them on their shelves so they’d look learned. Which to me brought up 2 questions – 1, what if someone picks one up and thumbs thru it? Do none of their guests ever read? and 2. Why not put real books on the shelves and not read them? I was a budding writer and I desperately wanted that book to write in but it was an antique, so no. Not that this had any effect on me or anything, but I own about 500 blank books and journals now, about 1/4 of which I’ve filled with my own writing. So maybe the whole thing was a mixed blessing. But I’m still mad.

  229. I wanted real ice skates that were the proper size. The kind where you pick the boot and the blades separate. I got a pair of the cheap one piece skates a size too big so I could “grow into them”. Nothing worse then going to a competition trying to pilot cheap wrong size skates. My knees were destroyed by the time I could have bought my own skates. I still have those skates and at 48 years old they finally are the right size for competition skating for me.

  230. There was a little factory in the town I grew up in. I swear I saw an ENORMOUS pile of sit and spins outside that factory – always wanted one, but never had one. My childhood friend and the Brarbie Town House with the elevator you could lift and lower – I wanted one so bad! And now I have 3 teenage boys so I could never re-live the Barbie dream…..

  232. As a kid I was jealous that my little sister got a Power Wheels corvette one year. By that time I was too big to have one of my own, but I still found it highly interesting and wished there was one my size.

    I had friends who had a Sit ‘n Spin. We’d always stand on it and do waist twists to make it move until stumbling off it.

  233. I can’t really remember anything I REALLY wanted that I didn’t get. I’m sure there was plenty of stuff I asked for that I didn’t receive, but I was a finicky child so even if I didn’t get exactly what I asked for, my joy at getting what I DID receive blocked out any disappointment over NOT getting what I DIDN’T. Which sounds like, “Oh, what a sweet child,” but really I just couldn’t remember what I specifically asked for because I was a little kid and was just like “FUCK YEA TOYS!”

  234. I wanted a spider monkey. My father said no because they throw their poo around. Now that I have kids I see the wisdom in his denial.

  235. Mine wasn’t a toy. Every time we went to the Celtic festivals (which was several times a year) I’d wander off and they’d find me either watching the dancers (which I later got to do for two years!!!–until we moved and I lost my teacher) or hiding in the harpers’ tent playing on the harps. I wanted a Celtic lap harp SO BADLY.

    I asked for one every bday and every xmas for years before I gave up because I left for college and decided the answer would always be no.

    I’ 40 now and it still makes me sad…my hands will no longer let me play a string instrument, haven’t been able to for years so it is officially too late now. I think I would have loved it, but I do wonder sometimes if maybe it was a good thing I didn’t get it; I suspect never having it is less hard on my heart than having it, loving it, and then no longer being able to play it ten years later.

    (PS: I didn’t have a sit and spin but my neighbor did…holy crap was that fun. Tried it again on a midnight trip to walmart in my 20s and it…did not go well. I still recommend trying it if you ever come across one)

  236. @Kristin C at 1:27pm – I DID get a Milky the Cow. I remember putting in the little tablets that dissolved in water to make the water look like milk. What I don’t remember, but my mother tells me, is that I loved the darn thing and would hug it in bed to go to sleep – hard plastic with rigid legs and all.

    Sometime years later (college age), my mother cleared out a lot of old toys and we gathered them up to donate them, including Milky. My grandmother, my mom, my younger sister and I all went together to haul the bags. When we tossed the bag with Milky into the donation bin and walked away, my mom said, “Wait! Do I hear something? A moo?” And my grandmother agreed – they had worked up the plan to tease me about MIlky. Ha! Hopefully he found a good home with another child!

  238. Baby Alive – you’ll make a mess.
    Easy Bake Oven – it won’t work and you’ll burn the house down.
    Sigh

  239. A microscope. Those kits for kids where you go out into the yard and find stuff and bring it back and look at it. I know they make way better microscopes now but, it’s just not the SAME!

  240. Mine was a puppy. Which I have gotten last year and this year (yes we still have the dog the puppy turned into, her name is Bug and she just turned a year old. And I will keep the baby boy I got this year. His name is Stark.)

  241. Easy Bake Oven! My mom refused to buy a tiny plastic box that “baked” with a 100 watt light bulb “when we have a perfectly good oven in the kitchen.” I complained, so she bought me the tiny pans that go with it and made me bake using the regular oven. So then, in college, my best friend and I went to Toys R Us and bought the gift we never got as a kid. I bought an EBO and she got the Snoopy Snow Cone Maker and we went back to the dorm to make treats for all our sure-to-be-envious friends. It soon became clear that our parents had been on to something, as we served up gummy chocolate dried out batter and chunks of pink flavorless ice.

  243. I always wanted a Big Wheel. It looked so cool when the kids on the commercial would do the power slide but my parents knew full well my brothers and I would smash the thing to bits within the hour.

  244. An easy bake oven. My mom said no child of hers was going to bake by light bulb! I just loved the teeny, tiny cakes you could make.

  245. My younger cousin, Cheryl, always got the toys I wanted: EVERY DAMN TIME! I swear Santa got my list mixed up with hers. I wanted the Tiny Tots Treehouse and instead got the Weebles Treehouse. Cheryl got my Tiny Tots Treehouse. I wanted a Big Wheel but she’s the one who got one. I wanted a cabbage patch doll and got a “homemade” one. But Cheryl got a cabbage patch. It was just never ending. I remember multiple times on Christmas morning when I opened a gift and my mom would shoot my dad a look and said, “That’s what you wanted me to get her, right?” And he would get all exasperated and be like, “No! It’s not.!” I think Dad would’ve learned to not let mom do shopping on his behalf since it was never quite right but he didn’t. That being said, one of my best gifts that I still have to this day was my Fisher Price play castle—the original one with the pink dragon and the carriage and the dungeon. I’m 49 and still buy pieces that are missing from it. But back to Cheryl and her great Christmas gifts—I always wondered why my mom just couldn’t shop with my aunt. AND it’s not like I didn’t provide mom with an actual list and the dog-eared pages of the latest Christmas catalog.

    I do remember when I was in the third grade, asking for a wooden dollhouse. I did get the exact dollhouse I wanted and was presented with a box of wood (it was a kit) on Christmas morning. It was probably 2 years before the shell of a house was erected as a birthday gift for me. It was pretty slip-shod but I loved that dollhouse and played with it all the time.

  246. I never got a doll house. My friend down the street had a big fancy one. I never did and instead I used my bookshelf to make rooms for my people and animals to live in, including pasting on stickers for pictures on the walls. I had the doll furniture but no house for it.

  248. Barbie doll. A REAL one. My parents thought they cost too much, so, nope–never had one. But my girls did!!

  249. A real dollhouse that was made of wood and put together by my dad or something.’like your dollhouse but I wouldn’t have wanted it haunted back when I was five. Now, I’d love it t if it was haunted.

  250. PoGo Ball… And I always wanted a chemistry set. Being the oldest of 10 kids, I completely understand now why Santa never brought me a Chemistry set!

  251. My folks did not have much money. I never got a Barbie but a cheap substitute Amazon looking doll, just a little to big. My two older sisters and one younger all got bikes. I teased my Mom so much she said she would get me one as an adult. Two best gifts were a packet of 100 sheets of paper for my younger sister and I and a microscope from my dad.

  252. An Easy Bake oven. I was a fat kid and I really wanted to make myself a cake whenever I wanted one. It’s probably best I didn’t get it.

  253. I didn’t ask for a lot from my parents. (I was the GOOD child ;)) I asked for modest gifts because I knew they didn’t have disposable income to buy expensive stuff.

    My grandparents are another, sadder story. When I was too old for toys I would ask my grandparents for CDs of whatever bands I was into – Linkin Park, Evanescence, Our Lady Peace, etc. I didn’t get them because they would ask my ass-kissing cousin (one of their favourites) if they were “appropriate” for me, and she’d always come up with a BS reason why they weren’t. (“Linkin Park swears in their songs!”) I didn’t get a CD from my grandparents until I was 16 or 17, when I’d asked for Elton John’s latest compilation. I’m still puzzled as to why they bought me that, as they’re so homophobic. I guess they figured he doesn’t swear. (Obviously they don’t know the song “The Bitch is Back”, but it wasn’t on that compilation.)

    Nowadays, I get a gift card because my grandfather can’t be arsed to buy actual gifts. One year it was EB Games, another year Winners (which is the Canadian version of TJ Maxx), other years Indigo (bookstore chain, like Barnes & Noble). The last two years it’s been Michaels, because my mom suggested it instead of an Indigo gift card because I’d mentioned I had a lot of books to get through. I’ll probably get another Michaels gift card.

  254. OMG A Ouija board! A friend of mine had one and we played with it at a sleepover. I thought it was so cool! My very superstitious, Catholic mother wasn’t having any of it though. She’d heard about “The Excorcist” from someone she worked with and didn’t want me “bringing the Devil into our home” and/or getting possessed. :-/ LOL

  255. The giant 1980s lego space-ship.
    A dollshouse.
    Sylvanian Families – toy rabbits, squirrels etc with dollshouse furniture.

    Instead I got, over the course of several years:
    A kids sewing machine.

    A knock-off, off-brand Barbie doll.

    A basket ball – I actually got my tracksuit pants and undies pulled down and spanked/hit/beaten really hard in on a public street, severely enough that my therapist regards it as genuinely abusive, because I “wasn’t grateful enough for the basket ball.”

  256. Oh, yeah – and the AD&D rule book. My mother was convinced that Satan worshippers were trying to indoctrinate innocent children by way of toys.

  257. I remember a set of flocked zoo animals in the back of a magazine I saw. I guess my Mom didn’t have the $1.50 to send off for them. I really miss my Mom.

  258. I normally got the fun gifts from my grandparents (snoopy snow cone maker, pottery wheel, etc), but I wasn’t allowed to actually play with them (they disappeared into the attic “for later”).
    The one gift I really wanted was piano lessons, but I got jazz ballet classes (because mom wanted to take jazz ballet herself and made me go with her)
    Sigh

  260. I had a sit & spin! It was awesome as a child. Someone got one for my son a couple years ago, and it was awful. Like exactly the same, but awful. When I was a child, I thought I was turning a wheel and it made me spin. As an adult, I realized the “steering wheel” is stationary and you’re just pulling yourself around. IDK I guess RA, 110 more ponds of body weight, and the uncontrollable nausea another 35 years of age gives you when spinning in circles has ruined it for me.

    What I DID’NT get and desperately wanted was an easy bake oven. I guess I could get one now, but, you know… adult with a full size oven now, so I fear the magic would be lost. I miss being able to be a child.

  261. I always wanted the doll Baby Alive. I had this doll on my list every year until I finally grew out of dolls (rather late). My parents gave me lots of wonderful gifts over the years, but they just would not buy me that doll. Then, 30 years later, a new version of Baby Alive is on the market and my parents buy it for my niece! Sure…the Granddaughter gets it! 🙂

  262. Peaches and Cream Barbie. I wanted one sooooooo bad. That Christmas I got Perfume Pretty Barbie, who admittedly, I realize now was more awesome because she had a bodacious pink dress that converted from cocktail to evening length and a bottle of real perfume. It made me feel like the most sophisticated 7 year old ever. Once in a while I get a whiff of something that reminds me of that perfume, and I get all nostalgic. One of the neighbor girls had one, so I’d get to play with it sometimes. She thought my Perfume Pretty Barbie was cool, so we kind of negotiated these Barbie play dates where we’d each get to play with the other girls coveted Barbie. It sort of felt like a hostage negotiation. We both got what we wanted while holding something over each other. It worked for both of us. Oh elementary school politics.

  263. I wanted a Care Bear. My mom’s friend made generic ones, so that’s what I got. My mom liked that it was unique, I was not impressed. So when I wanted a cabbage patch doll my mom’s friend’s handiwork came through again. But this time with the knockoff plastic head with the really ugly nose. Now I appreciate the value of homemade and that Carebear was really special. But at the time it was maddening.

    Also, desperately wanted Evel Knievel stunt motorcycle that you wound up before letting it rip. Almost bought one for myself in my 30s.

  264. My toy that I always wanted in the ‘70s but never received was an Easy Bake Oven. My dad wouldn’t let my mom get it for me because he didn’t think it was an appropriate gift for a boy. He also outlawed the children’s kitchen set, except the sink unit. Apparently the sink unit isn’t gay, but the refrigerator and stove will push you over the limit and the next thing you know you’re covered in sequins & glitter.

    From what I understand, small cakes cooked with lightbulbs aren’t that great anyway, but I still wanted one. I’m fift—fort—I’m older now, but I still look at them when I see them in the stores. In the past, when I have been financially able, I always donate one or more Easy Bake Ovens to Toys for Tots. It always makes me feel great!

  265. I wanted an American Girl doll. They only had historical dolls at that point and I looooved the books. I eventually got a history degree and my undergrad thesis focused on women during WWI. I knew my parents didn’t have a big budget and I told them every year that I would be TOTALLY FINE if the only thing I got for Christmas + birthday was one of the dolls.

    I bought myself a doll last month. I’m 31 and I nearly skipped out of the store. Totally sent a selfie to my mom. I’m “sharing” her with my 4yo, who is getting Kit for her 5th birthday.

  266. My husband and I both wanted a big wheel and never got one. We just figured this out about each other this year, so guess what our 5 year old is getting? There is a 70 lb limit though 🙄

  267. I was a TERRIBLY spoiled child and I can’t think of anything I wanted that my folks didn’t get for me (unless it was clearly something that didn’t leave any lasting trauma), but as an adult I have learned disappointment. I never got the Blue Willow patterned Doc Martens I wanted.

  268. Underoos. They were so, so cool, and my mom refused to get them because they were basically just extremely overpriced underwear.

  270. The board game Mystery Date. Really.
    Santa thought it was too risqué, for a 12 year old apparently.

  272. A pink princess telephone. My best friend had one of her own in her room. I’ll never forget how totally awesome I thought that would be!

  273. I always really really wanted a swing set. Now that I am a 22 year old adult, I am able to purchase one! 😀 and I realize that they don’t make adult sized swing sets practically anywhere… and somehow the children sized swing sets simply don’t cut it for me anymore. *Sigh.

  274. A Big Wheel. Since I was a girl, it wasn’t even on anyone’s radar. But I would’ve totally torn up the neighborhood with that bad boy.

  276. #38 Angela, not to burst your bubble but, yes my husband and I bought our son one of those cars. It was the Batmobile as he was very into Batman at the time. Actually, it was probably the 90’s when he got it as he was born in 87 and he was around 4 years old when he got it.

  277. I don’t remember any specific toy, but in junior high I desperately wanted a pair of Dittos jeans which were all the rage at the time, but I knew my parents couldn’t afford them so I quit asking. Imagine my surprised delight when going through a bag of hand-me-downs from an older cousin and finding a pair of tan Dittos (!!) … thaaaat she’d worn immediately after shaving her legs. Dried spotted blood stains all over the lower half of the pantlegs. I was crushed.

  278. My nursery school had this neat thing that was made from two wood half circles with a “step” on each side and one in the middle, so it was like a little bridge. Or you could turn it over and two people could sit, one on each side, and rock it. Don’t know why I wanted it so much when I was 4, or who wold have rocked on it with me, since my closest age sibling is 5 1/2 years older, but I was fascinated by it. 5 years later I did get a Barbie dream house of the day that had (gasp) a sliding “glass” door out to the patio. It was the coolest thing ever, so I can’t complain about the step/rocker thing.

  279. My mom was anti getting us things we actually wanted for Hanukkah usually, so I learned not to want things, really. But I would have liked a big wheel. I don’t think I’d fit one now, though.
    Some name brand clothes would have been nice, too. My bobo Keds were not a popularity magnet at all.

  280. Star Wars action figures. I always wanted them but I never got them (because I’m a girl? not sure). Patriarchy! My little cousin Jeff had all of them, even a Millennium Falcon, and I always wanted to play with his toys, but we were 5 years apart so playing together was sort of awkward.

  281. The mouse trap board game. My best friend actually has it, but never lets us pay it because it’s too hard to set up. I used to watch the tv commercial for it all the time because it was on our taped off tv copy of Alice in wonderland.

  282. A Trapper Keeper. Yes, I was that kid that desperately wanted a Trapper Keeper, but could never convince my mom that I was worthy. One time I told her that it would help me be more organized because I could just reach into my school desk and grab it, and have everything I needed at my finger tips. She suggested I get fabric of different textures and glue a swatch to the corner of each folder so I could tell by touch what each folder was.
    I still hate her. 😉

  283. Cricket. The big creepy doll that had a tape deck in her back and “talked” when you pressed play. She had different outfits you could put her in to Match her stories. My best friend had her and I LOVED that doll. Leigh never liked her.
    There also was Jem’s car that had the radio in the trunk that really played music. Leigh had that too. She always had the best toys.
    However, my mom always came through even when we didn’t have a ton of money. I got a cabbage patch the year they came out and I got an American girl doll when there were only 3 to choose from.

  284. A wood block flute. My ex- asked me what I wanted (like he did each year) and one year I told him I wanted a wood block flute I had seen in a music store window. It was really the first time I had give him a definite answer to that question (and we had been married atleast 10 years at that point). Did I get it for Christmas? No! So the first day the store was open, I went and bought it for myself. Did I say he is my ex? Hmmm. I still have the flute.

  285. Pogo ball. It had that little plaform around the ball. Always wanted one, but looking back, thank goodness I nver got one. Had the wind knocked out of me enough falling off my skates trying to go down my driveway,,,,,,,

  287. I always wanted a Malibu Barbie Beach House. I had some of the clothes and furniture, but had to make my Barbie house out of a cardboard box. I wanted my Barbie dolls to live in style with convertibles, an awesome house and a full wardrobe. Instead I kept losing the little barbie shoes and one of siblings kept pulling off the arms or head. Or it might have been me. Those Barbie heads popped off easily when you were using those teeny tiny combs to do their hair.

  288. A Slinky. I’ve been told “Well, they still sell ’em. Buy yourself 1 now.” But now I’m old & live in a place with nothing resembling steps or stairs to even use a Slinky on so no point. (Never, ever EVER congratulate an old person on reaching the “Golden” Years.)

  289. Two things: A Barbie Townhouse!! My friend across the street got one, and we played with it occasionally. But then she’d put it away saying she didn’t wanna “mess it up. What did she think I was going to do? Pee on it? We were 7-yearold girls who both loved Barbie…grr. SECOND, and more importantly , a piano!! I always wanted to learn to play the piano, but we didn’t have one. Mom bought me a Casio organ, which of course, wasn’t the same. I learned to play a few songs, one of which was “Moon River”. Even when I was 8, I thought it was a lame song, but I learned to play whatever sheet music Mom gave me. She always said we couldnt afford a piano. Then, when I was 15, she paid $1500 for a new dining room suite, including a HUGE China cabinet. I was livid. I remember confronting her about it, and she just shrugged. I told her that her desire to “keep up with the Joneses was an affront to my education”. She looked at me and frowned. I wasn’t sure whether she knew I was right or whether she was pissed that I didn’t see the benefit of this new ostentatious dining room furniture. We had a perfectly good dining room table, which sat 6 people and so did the new table. And what irritated me more was that my mother had a piano growing up, and her piano teacher wanted her to become a concert pianist! She was that good. She became a biology teacher instead (go figure) Yet, I was denied the joy of learning to play the piano because Mom wanted a prettier dining room table and a China cabinet big enough to double as a chicken coup should the need arise!! And now I have a piano that my husband’s grandmother gave us but I don’t have time to learn how to play it. Maybe, some day! Anywho, thanks for asking!!

  290. Man, I was an only child raised by grandparents. So I had allll the crap that I wanted on Christmas. However, I had one thing that every friend wanted and did not have: my private detective kit. I fingerprinted every room in my house and used that spy camera all the time.

  291. My brother and I would have gladly committed crimes for our own big wheels, one each. We would have then ruled the world.

  292. Any type of video game system. My father was of the belief that video games were stupid and pointless and never let us have one of any kind. Even when we were teenagers and had our own jobs, we were not allowed to buy one for ourselves.

  293. I haven’t had time to read all these many many replies, but I did scan and noticed only one that matched mine. A horse. We had a neighbor with a farm out in the country but I was never invited to go ride

  294. I desperately wanted a cabbage patch kid. I think they cost around thirty or so dollars at the time but by my birthday in November, it was more like a hundred dollars. So my parents took to Old Paris flea market in Okc and got me a fake one that cost five dollars. All my friends has real ones and has cabbage patch slumber parties. When we were all changing in to our matching PJ’s mines arm fell off. I’m still traumatized to this day, it didn’t help my social status since I was a wierd kid anyway…

  295. White go-go boots. What I got instead were these fake boots that were actually spats that you put on your legs that fitnover the tops of your white dress shoes. Totally not boots!

  296. A snoopy shows one machine. They looked so fun and neither mom nor Santa was any help

  297. An inground swimming pool! Yes, I lived in Chicago, but I was willing to wait until summer! 😤

  298. I wanted that Barbie head you could do hair and make-up on. It was just the head and shoulders sitting on a tray. Never got it. Never learned how to do my hair or make-up, either.

  299. A microscope. And one of those birds that tips its head into a glass of water and “drinks”.

  301. I had a hippity hop for one glorious day before I hopped over a piece of glass and it popped. I seriously wanted another one for Christmas, but it was not to be. I’m scarred to this day because mom wouldn’t buy me another one.

  302. Barbie was my never-received gift, believe it or not. I got her little sister, Skipper, but never Barbie, and of course not Ken. I had to babysit to play Barbies.

  303. Oh, and also Legos. My brother and I got everything except the real Legos. We got Tinker Toys, which are useless in comparison, and a Legos knock-off from Sears. Seriously, I should have kept those. They’d probably be collectors thingys now. Of course they weren’t as good as Legos – which is why I got them – and they probably would have fallen apart.

  304. I always wanted a pocket knife! In the eighties every kid had one and they were useful for all sorts of things like cutting down saplings and making bows and arrows… I told Mom and Dad that if they would get me one i would stop taking the steak knives outside where I would responsibly stick them blade-down into the ground when I was finished cutting with them. Then i would forget them until Dad found them with the mower.

  305. Just got over leukemia. Just got over related depression. (It’ll be back). Started to dress up. Got a new skirt but it was pointed out to me that the pattern is little vaginas. Anyway always wanted to swim with orcas. In the wild! (Too bad captive orcas can’t read-they could seriously use a dose of Furiosuly Happy.)

  306. So, this is sort of two things in one. I was a majorette and I never wanted to do anything but play the snare drum with all the boys. I so badly wanted to be a drummer but my grandmother would not allow me to have drums in the house because it would be too noisy. I’m 56 and still want to play the drums

  308. After reading all these comments, I feel a little guilty for this. I had an Easy Bake Oven, a Lite Brite, a Hippity-Hop, Big Wheels, Legos, Sit and Spin, Giant Tinker Toys (those were soooo cool!), Barbies and the Dream House, Mrs Beasly Doll, Betsy Wetsy, and a bunch of other toys. But what I really wanted and never got was a Footsie toy, or a Skip-A-Roo (in the ’80s it was called a Skip-It). I wrote it on my Christmas and Birthday lists for years, but it never came. What I did get was a jump rope, 4 years in a row. My mom couldn’t understand why I kept asking for a damn jump rope, but she bought me one every Christmas until 1981 or so. By then, I was 14 and was developing enormously and jumping rope was uncomfortable at the very least. So I stopped asking for the Skip-It/Footsie and asked for a ski jacket instead. I got one with a hood. Not cool at all! Mom tried, she really did, but I don’t think she really knew what to do with a teenage girl.

  309. Does it count if I got it, lost it, and got it again…too late? One year I got a board game called Park & Shop. It became THE game for quite a while, but eventually it wound up in my parents’ basement storage. Then they moved house, and it was gone. For several years after that, my brother and I would torture my mom with, “You gave away PARK & SHOP…You GAVE AWAY Park & Shop…YOU gave away Park & Shop!” Then one Christmas, there was Park & Shop under the tree! My mom had searched everywhere, in those pre-Internet days, and finally found it. We sat down to play it and it was the most stupid, boring game EVER. The name says it all: you have a car token, and a shopping list, and whoever parks, shops, and gets back to their car first wins. The only good thing about it was that, being a game of the ’50s, it had shops like the Five & Dime and the Haberdashery (still one of my favorite words).
    So for years after that, my mom would say to us: “YOU wanted Park & Shop…”

  310. A leather jacket. A black or brown classic one from the swap meet. My mother instead bought a white one which was too small for me, and not returnable so my younger sister got to keep it. I also desperately wanted ballet lessons and asked for them for years. Nope. Know who got them? My younger sister. Why? “To help her with balance and muscle coordination.” You know who didn’t care about ballet and didn’t take the classes seriously? You guessed it. Yes I’m still bitter and in my late 40s.

  311. PayDay, for some weird reason the game PayDay is what I always craved. Now I just crave my payday, knowing that income equals expenses minus 10%.

  313. The Donny & Marie Osmond dolls. I wanted both, but would have happily settled for just Donny. I loved him so much when I was 8! (I loved Shaun Cassidy more, but I don’t remember him having a doll. I did have all his records.) But alas, they were not available in our town of 800 people, and this was many decades before online ordering and free shipping.

  314. A Big Wheel Bike. It had one giant wheel in the front and two little wheels in the back and the seat was about one inch off the ground. I’m not sure where I thought I might ride it since we lived on a farm with a gravel driveway but I wanted one so much. My daughter has asked for a horse every year for Christmas and she’s 25 and we’re still not getting her a horse. She also told me recently that every year when she blew out the candles on her birthday cake, she wished for a horse. Time to change your wish!

  315. #34 Orion, that’s probably even a whole other thread: awesome things you got that your parents carefully broke or destroyed so you couldn’t enjoy them.

    Reason 52,835,204 that I never had kids.

  317. I asked for years for a triumph spitfire and my dad catagorically refused saying I would end up a road pizza. Each year I got practical gifts: faux leather luggage to go to college, a typewriter., etc. I was traumatized by the message of once you hit 18 your out on your own.im 54 and still remember the feeling of rejection, however 2 hours into college I was like see you later suckers.

  318. A horse. Every Xmas and birthday, that was what I wanted. I finally got my horse when I was in my 40s. Now I have 5. 😊 also when I was real little, I wanted a Tonka Truck. Girls didn’t play with trucks; they played with dolls. 🙄

  319. #314 Lisa Cranston, I know I shouldn’t butt in but, get her the damn horse. Refer to my previous post. However, do it with the condition that she first educate herself on complete horse care and training and take lessons with a qualified trainer and that she pays all the upkeep. Once she understand what’s involved, she may change her mind, I have to say that horse people don’t really change into non-horse people. It’s just like breathing air. Your soul is not complete until you are with horses. It may very well be a big dark hole inside that needs fulfilling. It was for me, but I also educated myself and worked in the horse industry for years and took lessons and worked with a trainer. I knew my horses and worked with them before I owned them (the most expensive one cost my $1.00, the rest were free.) Many trainers trade lessons for work around the barn; so looking into being a working student is a good way to start.

  320. GoGo boots- stacked heel, front zipper. I wanted them more than a pony and David Cassidy riding it. The year that my mother got them for me, I found them while snooping which was my Jedi-level skill as a child. She found out that I’d found them and returned them before Christmas. I think that I wept for days, and my mother didn’t bat an eye. The next year I got a kitten for the Karma Win!

  321. Hands down, Barbie Dream House! Next door neighbor had one- wahhh! Also always wanted Barbie Head- finally got one and my sister single-handedly invented punk rock like the very next day. Yes, she cut all of her hair off:(

  322. My Mom’s (RIP) family was evil. She had 6 brothers and sisters and I have a ton of cousins. The aunts and uncles would buy another sibling’s kids cheap drum sets and other toys that would cause said recipient’s parents to have a nervous breakdown! *Grammar check: recipient
    requires a possessive, right?

  323. My sister and I had a doll house that my mom put out for Goodwill to pick up but she told us Santa asked for it for poor kids. I also got a knock off Barbie house and I came home from school and my mom had given it to the girl across the court from me. My room was too small and she was not about to have it outside of my room. My parents were not rich and many Christmas Days I opened hand made stuffed animals, which I loved. One year my parents put stuffed animals on our presents (three kids) and my older sister and brother got up early and picked out which stuffed animal THEY wanted, and I got the ugliest animal (which I LOVED) but jokes on them because in less than a year I had all three animals. They were too old to have stuffed animals. I wasn’t. I don’t recall any gifts I never got, but my memory isn’t great.

  324. A chupacabra. Ok, I was not a child, and it wasn’t Santa or my parents I was asking, but my husband. I even drew a sad looking chupacabra, begging for a Christmas home!
    But I never even got a goat. sigh

  325. I really wanted a Baby Alive. I never got one, despite asking for years for one. You “feed” the doll water and then the doll “pees” it out. I thought it was the greatest toy I ever saw when I was a kid. I don’t want one now, but I still feel that I have the right to complain.

  326. I always wanted one of those balls you sit on and bounce, the ones with the horse head and a handle on it

  327. I wanted a chemistry set, but my mother was afraid I would blow myself up. So I pretended with water and perfume and food coloring and little bottles. And that is why I grew up to be an accountant instead of a nuclear physicist.

  328. Theresia, I got Dancerina. She stands out as one of the most disappointing gifts I ever got. I wanted her soooo bad, but let me assure you, pressing on her head and having her spin in circles gets old fast. She wasn’t satisfying as a baby doll, either, because that permanent pink crown on her head just made that seem… wrong. She lives in my memory as “Stupid Dancerina.”

  331. An American Girl doll. I would get the catalog and would save them and look at them all year long. Back then, they came with the actual coins from their time period, not replicas, which I thought was incredibly cool. I never asked for one, because the prices were insane and I was incredibly aware that my single mom could never afford it. But what a dream! And matching clothes for me! Now I live near an American Girl store and still sometimes go in and daydream. I’m sure it contributed to me being a cosplayer, all those dress up daydreams!

  332. As shared on your Facebook post…

    The god damn G.I. Joe playset.

    I was in daycare. There was a pile of pictures, cut from catalogs, of various toys. We were supposed to paste the ones we wanted on a cutout stocking, as our list for Santa.

    I saw it, immediately. .. A G.I. Joe playset, with all kinds of accessories (an emergency room and a cafeteria were part of the attraction).

    I pasted it on, and handed it to the teacher. She told me to finish it. I said that I was done…that was the only thing I wanted.

    She said, “But that is a boy toy. You don’t want that.”

    I said, “Yes, I do.”

    She said, “No, that is for boys,” and RIPPED OFF THE PICTURE, REPLACING IT WITH A BABY DOLL PICTURE.

    I was livid.
    When mother came, I told her what had happened. I knew she didn’t believe in “boy toys and girl toys.” SHE would see to it that I got that playset, and we’d show that teacher.

    On Christmas morning, I opened my gift.
    A fucking baby doll.
    It drank a bottle, peed, sneezed, and got a runny nose.

    Not only did I get a baby doll, it was sick.

    I was pissed.

    I told my surrogate grandma. I knew SHE would have my back.

    She gave me a baby doll, too.
    It drank a bottle, and peed…and had male genitalia.

    Ruined Christmas in 3…2…1…

  333. I sound like a brat but I got the stupid Barbie house with the elevator (and it never worked right) but I wanted to learn ballet. And now at 40 it’s on my bucket list…someday I’ll be on pointe…

  334. The “Operation” game – where you try to remove plastic pieces from a guy on the operating table, and the metal sides of each slot on the game board ZAP if you touch them with the tweezers. Mom always said no because it was ghoulish. I bought one as an adult and it was fun a few times but not the laugh-fest I had imagined it to be. Also, as an adult, I became my own mother when I never ever bought my poor little daughter the “My Size Barbie” she asked for like four years in a row. Seriously, a three-foot-tall Barbie? Uh no, it’ll stand in the corner and stare at you and give you nightmares. Also, I must be the French Whore referenced above because I got white patent leather go-go boots! I believe there is a photo of me on Christmas morning, wearing a pink shirt and hot-pink tights, and my white boots, trying out my just-opened Dancerina. I remember her being a bit of a disappointment too, but mostly Christmas was wonderful growing up. I hope my daughter feels the same, despite the absence of My Size Barbie.

  335. PJ Sparkles. They came out with a bunch of sequel dolls but I only ever wanted the original.

  338. All I have EVER asked for that I NEVER got is a drum set. My Mom laughed and laughed, even into adulthood (I am 44).

  339. All I have EVER asked for that I NEVER got is a drum set. My Mom laughed and laughed, even into adulthood (I am 44).

  340. Fashion Plates and a pastel Sharp boom box! My BFF had a pink one and I wanted the turquoise one SO MUCH, but we were poor. I’m 44 and still looking for one!

  341. EZ Bake Oven! My mother told me that we already had a great oven and that I was welcome to make a cake anytime. What she didn’t understand was the magic of that light bulb! And the luxury of baking a cake in your bedroom.

  342. I always wanted a cabbage patch doll. My mom worked with someone who made knock off cabbage patch dolls out of nylons and sadness. That’s what I got for Christmas. I cried.

  343. Wow. That Pinterest board has blown my mind
    Hands down, the gift I wanted but never received was an Easy Bake Oven. Thanks for that bitter memory :).

  344. If you haven’t seen the old movie The Great Rupert, you should. Jimmy Durante and Rupert the squirrel. Vaudeville and dancing squirrel who saves A family at Christmas.

  345. For all those that wanted the Easy Bake Oven. I never got one either being the ninth kid (I think my Mom figured I’d my sister had one that was good enough). I did get to watch when our older brother “helped” her name a cake by putting a bunch of marshmallows in the batter. I remember us all watching in awe as the marshmallow rose higher and higher… of course when it hit the lightbulb, kablewie! That was it for the Easy Bake Oven. It did give me a great memory though. My brother told me today that he doesn’t even remember…

  346. If my sister, and make a cake. Seriously spellcheck? You can get kablewie but want to name a cake? “I’ll Call Her Susie”…

  347. Back in the ’50’s, Christmas was for many of us the only time besides birthdays that you got stuff. Toys had to last all year and there weren’t many of them. Christmas was when you got socks, underwear and handmade clothes. We were a military family so didn’t have much, but we always managed to have some actual contemporary toys at Christmas. I DID get an easy bake oven one year . . . it made one perfect little vanilla cake and I marveled at how only a light bulb could do that. It was a big mystery. Then we ran out of mixes and moved on.

    I hated getting dolls, except realistic baby dolls, and lusted for a telescope or microscope. One year I did get a chemistry set. As a young adult, I was awestruck when those electric child-sized cars came out. It beat the hell out of my little pedal-car when I was 4.

    On the other hand, my little brothers’ cowboy hats and guns didn’t interest me at all.

  348. Oh, I’m surprised that no one here mentioned a doctor or nurse kit. They were plentiful in the ’50’s and I used to go for the little candy pills. Not much interest in the rest of it since we were pretty healthy kids.

  349. I wanted a Chatty Cathy and Troll dolls. Never got them, but my best friend and next door neighbor did. I think my parents figured that my friend got everything and it saved them money.

  351. I always asked for a horse, but never got one. I always hoped, though. My sister and I asked for the same gift one year. A Raggedy Ann and Andy Alarm clock. I got it and she didn’t. She was very upset and remembers it to this day. So this year for Christmas, I got her one. 🙂

  352. I begged for a Cozy Coupe when I was probably 4. I specifically wanted the “real” one that was red with yellow roof. Instead, my parents bought a smurf-theme ride-in toy car (cause it was on sale). Looking back, it was pretty cool; but at the time I was so disappointed. There’s lots of photos of me trying to fake happiness on Christmas morning.
    30 years later, my dad bought my daughter the exact Cozy Coupe I wanted. She loved it, cause it’s awesome, but I still give my dad a hard time that he never got me one.

  353. We were so poor, I didn’t know that toys even existed. If I wanted a boat for bath time, I had to make my own. For a smoke stack, I used a small wooden thread spool. I glued this onto a flat piece of wood, for the hull, with a pointed end for the bow. For propulsion, I spread some bar soap on the stern. As the warm bathwater melted the soap, the boat would float forward. Pretty cool for a little boy!

  354. Baby alive… and one of those tin type dollhouses..and a sipping Pebbles. My best friend’s older sister had all three.. I have A tin-type dollhouse now, sans furniture, and I’ve lost interest in baby alive.. but one of these days, I will track down a straw-sipping Pebbles.. LOL 🙂

  356. In the 70s. Any stuffed animal was the most awesome gift. We would play school with all our stuffed animals. We would give them full names- including a middle name. The. We would spend hours on seating assignments.
    One Xmas my 4 siblings all got cuddly Disney animals. I got Pluto but he must have been filled with cardboard I pretended I was Laura Ingalls Wilder and had to endure this hardship.
    (I also used to go outside and beat rugs just for the fun of it like I was living on the prairie. My dad was a doctor and we were fairly well off but I wanted to pretend I was poor. Weird.)

    FYI I cannot find the comma or period on my iPad. Help?

  357. I always wanted an Easy Bake Oven, but never got it. I had so many years of disappointment. I guess that is what therapy sessions are for.

  359. I always wanted a trampoline. My across the street neighbors Todd had one and I loved going over to play … until that time when, just like in roadrunner, I hit the side of his brick house and slid (like in slow motion) down the side of itt. I was fine and managed to only have a few scraped. We laughed for a while and I still wanted one of my very own. Todd moved. Away shortly after that and I never jumped on one again.

  360. I keep going to your site to hope to see a new post because that would make me know that you are feeling better. You give me so much joy and laughter and insight and pause in my life – that I am so praying and hoping and sending good energy into the world in every way that might reach you that things feel good again. I have been where you are and I know what it feels like and I just wish I could do something, but I know there is nothing anyone can do. Know that people love you and people are pulling for you and people are thinking of you .

  361. Can I just leave a random mental illness rant because I need to? Yesterday I went shopping, which is usually really hard for me, but I felt fine and had a great time. Today I spent with my family who I adore, and all my anxiety came back up and I had a really hard day and probably made them wonder for the millionth time what the fuck is wrong with me. I really would rather have had my usual wal-mart panic attacks and then had a nice time with the people I love. I hate my brain. Also, my present was a cabbage patch doll. I didn’t get one from the store but my mom made me one. That’s how awesome she was and is.

  362. A puppy was always at the top or my list (never got one until I was an adult) and Barbies. My sister and I got Penny Bright dolls instead (anyone remember those?) I kind of wish I still had her.

    \

  363. Off topic. Was at Perkins with mom & aunt for Christmas Eve dinner. Older couple in nearby booth were reading the newspaper and chatting while they waited for their food. All of a sudden, Mrs. says (louder than perhaps intended), “You don’t DO yogurt. It’s called YOGA!” Awesome!

  364. Wow. One long string of disappointments up there. My wish list from the 50’s (when I would have been using a Sit and Spin) is short but still there. Crazy how long disappointments last and exist on the tip of the tongue or top of the brain. A sled that cruised farther and faster than the one I had and that all of my friends had. I never won that game. Second place, a bike with gears.

  365. I always wanted a Big Wheel. They were plastic, 3 wheeled “bikes” that sat extremely close to the ground. They were extremely popular when I was a kid. When I grew up and told my sons that I wanted one, they found a website that sold adult Big Wheels. Not sure if I’d still want one, but it was a cool, nostalgic concept.

  366. I’m going to be contradictory and list the thing I got that I didn’t want AT ALL: I was about 10 years old and my grandmother had a huge box under the tree for me. (It was the 80s, so a big box definitely meant something awesome, like a video game system or a remote control truck.) I tore open the wrapping paper to reveal…a Cabbage Patch doll. At this point I feel it important to specify that I am a boy. My grandmother had gone to the toy store, found an employee there, and asked them what the hot toy was for this year. Apparently, she was no more specific than that because i got a giant doll for x-mas that year. Didn’t care what it was, she just bought the “popular” toy that year. The alternative is that she thought I was gay, but I’m not prepared to evaluate my childhood on that deep of a psychological level. Merry Cabbagemas.

  367. I wanted a monkey. I mean I REALLY wanted a monkey. A friend and her family had 2 or 3 young chimps and she would sometimes bring one to see me, with it riding in her bike basket. I could never understand why my mother wouldn’t let us come inside to play.

  368. The Sears All-Steel Play Kitchen. I guess it was too expensive, more than not encouraging their little gay boy, because one year they actually did get me a cardboard toy stove—I think it was from Pillsbury…might have had Poppin Fresh’s picture on it. But yeah the sears set was always the #1 thing on my list. Props to my parents that I never realized how much money we didn’t have back then.

  370. When I was a little kid, I usually got most of the things I wanted (Creepy Crawlers, Barbie), but when I was in 7th grade in the late 60s, the only thing I wanted were white go go boots. My mom kept telling me the stores didn’t have my size, but I think they were just out of her price range. Every time I watched Hullabaloo and Shindig on TV and saw the go go dancers, I felt deprived, so I would put on my brother’s white crew socks and my white sneakers and pretend I had boots so I could dance with them.

  371. First robot I ever interacted with as a little, little kid was a Heathkit Hero-1 robot, and I desperately wanted one after that. We were always very poor and the kit was beyond our grasp. When I was in Junior High, we got a notice that Heathkit was liquidating all their educational product stock. This time, we could afford it! We called to verify stock, sent the check, and had it returned, voided. With it came a hand-written apology from a member of the staff who had also always wanted one, but now could never have one.

    I cried more over that loss than I did for my dearly beloved grandpa, rest his soul.

    That burning nostalgia is what kept me interested in robotics. Over the years I have tried piecing one together, but so many of the parts haven’t aged well. No idea what I’d do with one if I got it, honestly. But I still have a huge softspot for the little guy.

  372. Anonymous #39
    THIS is awful. It should not be a ‘wish’ but something deserved because you exist.

    Aside to Jenny: cannot see how to reply to a specific comment here, and wish we could all answer this one

  373. The first year Barbie came out, my mother and her sister got me and my cousins one doll each (back then, especially if you were as poor as we were, you didn’t get multiple Barbies). My cousins got Barbie and Ken and I got Midge. I always wanted a Barbie – a real one, not that red-headed impostor. But my aunt made us TONS of clothes for our dolls. I probably had 30 or 40 outfits. It was the youngest cousin who got the Ken doll who really felt gypped and I don’t blame her. She was far too young to like boys, even those who were not anatomically correct.

  374. P.S. I bought the Kindle version of Furiously Happy. I already read a copy from the library. I’m going to get a hardcover copy one of these days.

  376. I wanted a real Barbie. I got a fake Barbie. Now I realize that a real Barbie is a fake!

  377. In 1986, pregnant with my 1st child at age 23, I was reminiscing with Mom about Christmas past & the joy I felt when my cousin Shelley, & I both got Easy Bake Ovens from Santa (my Uncle Ron). We were both 4 years old in 1967. Shelley’s was turquoise, mine was yellow. My uncle hadn’t discussed the purchase with my folks & so he couldn’t have known about their fears that their still only child might burn herself on this recklessly engineered contraption. So I didn’t get to keep my heart’s desire. Whatever replaced it is completely unremembered. After telling Mom about my long ago heartbreak, she promised she’d buy me an Easy Bake if I made it to age 40. She explained if I could survive all of the world’s hazards for that long then I would likely have developed the skills to face off with the Easy Bake.
    Fast forward to December 2002 & Mom is tired of fighting for each breath & is hospitalized with yet another exacerbation of COPD. I try using the funny promise she’d made to make her fight for her life (yes, at the time it was all about me). Between gasps she tells me, on her behalf, she has cousin Shelley scouring flea markets to locate that long lost oven. But 7 months to the day before my 40th birthday Mom dies.
    Losing Mom broke something in me & it took nearly 10 years to work through my grief, even with 3 years of excellent therapy. Then in the same month of my 50th birthday the Easy Bake appeared. The same yellow model, still in it’s original box, still with a working 100w lightbulb & most of the pans & utensils. She’d been used & loved & had been waiting for me at a nearby antique store. They were asking $35 +tax for her, but I asked if they’d take an even $40 (somehow this symmetry made sense to me). And she was mine.
    Since then, I learned about another woman who had, under different circumstances, possessed then lost her Easy Bake Oven so I paid it forward, asking her to tell both our stories should she find someone else to pass it on to.
    In a few years I’ll turn 60 & I hope to get my 1st tattoo. It’ll be a vintage yellow Easy Bake on my right butt cheek.

  379. The game “Operation”, but my mom refused to buy it for me because she was a Christian Scientist.

  380. For several years in a row, I had asked for a set of plastic dishes. Finally, one year, they showed up under the tree, from Santa . . . with my sister’s name on them. Apparently, my mom had forgotten which one of us had asked for them. I was devastated.

  381. Legos. Dad said they were for boys. 53 years old now and my husband and I have an entire room of Legos. We may have over compensated. 🙂

  383. I always wanted a trampoline or a pool, but we never got either one because something-something about insurance. Fun haters.

  385. I NEVER got the big box of crayons … the one with the sharpener in the back. Both of my “only child” friends got the big box every single year when school started, but I was obviously mentally damaged by the lack of crayon variety that came in the 16 crayon pack.

  387. Lite Brite! Never did get it, but bought it for my little girl so I could play with it – the joys of being an adult!

  388. I really, really, really wanted one of those big life-size Barbie heads where you could style the hair and put makeup on her. I still do, but now I don’t have time to put makeup on MY face, let alone a plastic disembodied one.

  389. I am full of gratitude I actually got almost everything listed here up to and including the giant barbie head. I did not get a real pony but we did have a bouncy pony and I got some my little ponies. These posts make me want to dig up my parents so I can hug them and say thank you for all the stuff.

  391. Weebles. Omigod I wanted Weebles. Never got Weebles. Weeble-deprived childhood ensued. Am now firmly middle-aged and still want Weebles.

  392. When cabbage patch kids first came out, they were cheap down in FL, and my grandmother got beat up trying to get us girls one. So my father said we could have one when they were $1.
    I never did get one! But many years later after they passed, my sister got me one from a yardsale and every year has continued to buy me one retro toy for my birthday since.
    Love retro toys and buy them for mini me.

  394. Mystery Date! (a board game) Of course when I got a bit older, I realized what HORRIBLE idea a ‘mystery date’ really is!!!

  395. sis & I ALWAYS wanted the Operation game. We must not have ever mentioned it because mom was pretty good about getting us the things we wanted, and Operation wouldn’t have been terribly expensive.

  396. I wanted an American Doll girl. I read all of the books. I still want one. I take my daughter to the American Doll store and she’s all about careening the empty stroller around the store while I wander and drool over their lovely, soulless plastic selves.

  400. I wasn’t a tomboy by any means but I always thought boys had more interesting toys. Every Christmas it was another doll and I didn’t want another doll, it was my mother who wanted the dolls. I understand now, she grew up during the depression when life was hard and she wanted me to have what she had always wanted but she didn’t consider my personality. I wanted the chemistry set with the microscope, the train set and most importantly the slot car set, oh yeah! Never got any of those things but it did teach me an important lesson, it helped me pay attention to people and listen, eventually a person’s wildest dreams escape their lips.

  402. Dancerina: She was a doll who was a ballerina. I was told I couldn’t have her for a Christmas present, but if I shoveled snow for the rest of the winter, my dad would buy her for me (I was six.) I faithfully cleaned the walk and driveway until Spring, at which time my dad refused to buy me the doll. He said I had to learn what it felt like not to get what I wanted. Do you wonder why I have trust issues with men to this day, Dad? I don’t.

  403. I am pretty sure that my childhood sit n spinning still hiding somewhere in my mom’s house. As I am slowly cleaning it out in an attempt to get her to move into a more manageable size place, if I find it I am sending it to you! It was one of my favorites!

  405. 1976 – Baby Alive. My mom was convinced bacteria festered inside these dolls, so thus, Baby Alive never came.

  406. I did get a Baby Alive, and man alive, did I love that dolly!! But oh, that Barbie Dream House and the Easy Bake Oven were two things I never did get, they were out of our blue-collar budget.
    I also wanted Mystery Date, which I think was deemed too racy for me, because it never showed up under the tree, either.
    I just bought myself a Mystery Date game from TJMaxx. Forty years later. I held game night two weeks ago and we sat around and drank wine and played. It was awesome.

  407. I wanted Lincoln Logs and/or Legos, but my dad didn’t think those toys were for girls. So my brothers got them and, following Dad’s lead, were not inclined to share.

  409. I wanted a little brother. Come Christmas morning, there was no little brother but there was a ‘My Buddy’ doll. (You’ll recall he was the basis for Chucky.) So, not only was there no little brother, but there was a creepy ass doll staring at me from the corner of my room every night.

    In retrospect, I was pretty spoiled and shouldn’t complain about xmas gifts ever, but that one still haunts me.

  410. I too desperately wanted a Footsie ( #308, Maranda). This was in the late 60s. By the time I got one (for my late October birthday), it was too cold and wet outside to use it and it was not nearly as cool as it had been during the summer.

  411. Usually I was an easygoing kid … I wanted toys & books and I didn’t care what exact kinds. But then I was taken to NYC’s FAOSchwartz for a visit…and I decided I wanted the stuffed giraffe. For those of you who don’t know FAOSchwartz, that’s a LIFESIZED stuffed giraffe.

    (I also asked for a pony. Living in suburban Long Island, I didn’t really expect to get one. I just figured if I put BOTH of them on the list I might get one of them. Points for trying, but I didn’t get either.)

  412. Something goddam pink! My sister is one year older than me. She had blond hair as a child. I had and still have have dark brown hair (and looked like a boy). Grandma would make clothes for us. Being only a year apart, the clothes were often the same exact pattern in two different colors. My sister got pink. Always. I got the alternate color: blue, yellow, orange etc. Always.

  415. The road rovers cars – particularly the blue blob. And I found one for sale about 10 years ago and bought it! So satisfying!!

  416. When I was 11-ish my edgy big sister would flip the bird and say “sit and spin” so I actually thought that was the origin of the phrase. When I found out there was a toy called sit & spin I was like, Ha! Stupid marketers named their product after a lewd remark.”

  417. I always wanted a Snoopy Snowcone Machine. Saw one a few months ago at a garage sale for $3 and now it’s MINE! All mine!
    (I have yet to make one snowcone yet, but at least I’ve checked that off the list)

  418. I really wanted a Big Wheel so that I could race all of my friends down the hill and wipe-out at the bottom. I asked for one many times when I was 8-9 years old. My brother got one, but he wouldn’t let me ride it. Finally, my parents gave me a pink 10-speed bicycle, thinking that it’s much better than a little plastic Big Wheel. Looking back, it was. At the time…not so much.

  419. A cabbage patch doll. My mom had someone make me one. So not the same thing.

  420. i got a spirograph, and haven’t used it yet for fear of toppling piles of stuff around it. love your books by the way- i haven’t laughed so hard since the seventies when i indulged, now i’m just a snickerer- maybe a chuckler…

  421. Oh, I had one of these and loved it! That and my big wheel. Who the fk named it though, right? Now that I’m grown, I understand all the other meanings of sit and spin and have to refrain from saying that I used to love to sit and spin.

  422. The life size Shogun Warrior Godzilla…You do not understand how bad I want one now….it is my holy grail…

  423. Ballerina Barbie. I got Ballerina Cindy instead, which was the kid equivalent of expecting a BMW and getting a 1987 Toyota Corolla.

  426. I wanted a Girl’s World – it was a disembodied head on a stand that you could put blue or green eyeshadow on and its hair would grow and you could style it. My mum said it was sexist and I couldn’t have one. Her best friend’s daughter had one (she had loads of Weebles too) so when we visited I could indulge.

  428. 10 years old and REALLY wanted an electric guitar, ANY electric guitar including a cheap one from Sears….for 2 weeks before Christmas I stared at a long flat wrapped box under the tree with my name on it. Opened it to find……..A TENNIS RACQUET!
    hated tennis the rest of my life. I told a friend this story 40 years later and came home a week later to find an amplifier and guitar on my front porch : ) Thanks, DAN!

Leave a Reply

MY BOOKS:


shop

Subscribe to the bloggess, y'all.

Enter your email address and receive notifications of new posts by email. It\'s like I\'m stalking you, but more efficient.

Archives

ALL THE COOL KIDS ADVERTISE HERE:

I fucking love these people & not just because they support my wine-slushee habit:

Flourish in Progress: (T)hug Life: Part hood. Part good.

Pregnancy Calendar at Alpha Mom: Amalah’s week-by-week guide to the miracle of pregnancy and all the various indignities that come with it.

The Mack Files: Digesting life in bite-sized pieces through the lens of clichés, quotes & “truisms”.  Often irreverent, always honest.

Barking at the Moon: If your dog is your furry child, you will laugh out loud at Tracy Beckerman’s book about her family & a one-dog wrecking ball named Riley.

Kieran’s Humor: Not suitable for children, the sensitive or those hoping to get into heaven.

Go Doc Yourself Podcast: When a good doc ends, the klatch begins… Join hosts, scientists, and friends, Erin McCourt and Erin McCartt in weekly documentary dissection.

Welcome to xanaru: A mostly funny blog about the quest for happiness through authenticity, Great Danes and indiscriminate swearing. Plus hand-painted, custom artwork on bags, jackets, backpacks & more.

How the Hell Did I Not Know That?: Humorist Lucie Frost shares daily Instagram reels with learnings of the day—words, music, whatever–with plenty of laughs and all the curse words.

Beautiful Writers book: Writers! This coming-of-career memoir (w/ the BEST advice from celeb authors, real shit you haven’t heard) is life. A page-turning beach read doubling as how-to. #Magic

The Dating Days of Marta O: When I told my sister I was building a blog she said: “Do people still read blogs?” I do not know, but if YOU want to read it, here it is. Keep in mind, my stories about dating after 40 are for the brave.

Where Do I Belong? A memoir of Sarah Carrington: The unbelievable story of growing up in a religious cult in the mountains of Northern British Columbia. What happens to you in life doesn’t make you strong; rising above it does.

CONNECTED: A Personal Journal for Ketamine Therapy Created by writer & patient Katherine Davis for this powerful clinical treatment. If considering ketamine for major depression, check out this essential tool.

Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh: SO GOOD.

Discover more from The Bloggess

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading