Sunday, December 23, 2007

The Christmas Gift You Never Got

I have found over the years that the one subject that almost always starts a conversation at Christmas time is the subject of the Christmas present you always wanted but never got.




Mine was a Lionel Electric Train set. I might have settled for an American Flyer set but my dream train was the Lionel steam train. One with lighted cars and a lighted headlight on the locomotive and real smoke that came out of the smoke stack and one that whistled at crossings where the crossing guard came out of his shack and the gates came down when the train went by. Oh yes, and the cattle in the cattle car would unload at the cattle pen automatically and the lighted tower signal revolved in red and green, with a station that lighted up and working street lights and a lighted dinner that looked like an old trolley car.



But I never got one.

My brother got a Marx Electric Train when he was seven and I got to play with it, but it wasn't the same thing really. When I was 40 years old I bought myself an HO train on sale after Christmas one time and even built an elaborate layout. But even that wasn't the same either.

So friends, family, and readers (all both of you), what was it that you wanted for Christmas but never did get it?
Share with us those unfulfilled desires of yesteryear.
What was it you wanted so very badly that Santa never seemed to know about?

And have a Merry Christmas etc.....

14 comments:

TStockmann said...

There was a toy gun that emitted a high pitch whine, while the view screen showed a red laser-like line heading toward your target, then the target exploding. I still need one of those.

Merry Christmas, Dr, L.

drlobojo said...

TS, good to hear from you. Was that the 1970's Buck Rogers type pistol?

As V.P. of the John Spruce Society you reminded me that I haven't expounded on that enough lately.

Merry Christmas to you, and I hope Santa finds that gun for you in the near future. Of course you may have to be a good boy to get it.

Geoffrey Kruse-Safford said...

To quote Lucy, real estate.

Merry Christmas and all that good, happy feeling stuff to you and yours, drlobojo.

drlobojo said...

Real estate! That reminds me, several years ago someone gave me a square inch of some old growth forest land somewhere for Christmas.
I've to see If I can find that deed.

Erudite Redneck said...

A horse! But my older brother nearly got sqirshed between his an a corner post, and when I was a little a girl cousin of mine got thtown onto her head and like to died. So, that was out, and we remained pickup-truck cattle raisers.

drlobojo said...

Yep, a horse is even more dangerous than an official Red Ryder, carbine action, 200-shot, Range Model air rifle with a compass on the stock is.

TStockmann said...

Even better than the various space laser pistol:

http://mysite.verizon.net/adminkp1/toys/plazer.html

And I wasn't quite good enough this year but hope springs eternal and my Christmas was glorious even without it.

Pecheur said...

I can remember wanting a catch puppy. It had this thing where it caught a rubber ball. Well, I got it, but it was broken. And since Santa Claus brought it, it never got "returned". I was so mad at Santa because he broke my toy and I couldn't exchange it.

Anywho...Thanks. And Joyeux Noel Merry Christmas to you too. Have a grand day, mon ami

drlobojo said...

TS, a Plazer, neato keeno. A man needs a quest now and then. I hope you find one. Now that I know what it is, I'll keep an eye out for one. Stranger things have happened.

Pecheur, A "Catch Puppy" but it was broken.
That seems to be a theme, broken toys at Christmas. When my kids were little, and so was my income, we used to scour the eleemosynary thrift stores in January looking for expensive but broken discarded Christmas toys. There were always great things to find and often there were enough of the same things that we could piece together a good one. I truly warped my kids doing that. Two of them never buy anything new, and one only buys high end gauranteed brand new stuff.

Erudite Redneck said...

The horse-abused brother got me a Red Ryder this year!

drlobojo said...

Don't shoot your eye out redneck!

Erudite Redneck said...

Ha! Bird actually said to me: "Put the dogs in the sunroom before you take that outside."

LOLOL. Hoot! I am a card-carrying member of the safe-gun club!

BB-Idaho said...

Never got enough toy trains. Now that I'm retired, though, I have over 100 locomotives and 570 railcars on an N Scale layout that fills the basement. Merry Christmas to me!!

drlobojo said...

BB-I, now that is a layout. Do you have modules that you show with others or is it a private layout? My N-Gauge I've kept down to a two by four foot layout using Montanna mininig as the theme and 1870-90's locomotive and rolling stock. Alas it is dusty and and unloved at the momment in my studio.
Yes, maybe I should .....