I've been thinking about this, having read the thread talking about what people spend on kids' presents these days.
If I think hard I can probably recall things like a bicycle, before that a Tri-ang scooter, that sort of thing, all of which I thoroughly appreciated and used a lot. I was a huge fan of Britain's farm animals, used to save up pocket money to buy animals and ask for money to put towards things like the farm base and buildings for birthdays and Christmas. Sis & I both loved Lego, too, and often used to ask for, and get, Lego. I loved making the gardens with all the little plants.
Oh, and I had an enormous collection of cuddly toys - hated dolls but loved toy dogs, bears and so on - so would usually ask for another each Christmas. Always to add to the collection, they were all very loved.
We'd be given board games - we loved Monopoly, Totopoly, Risk, Cluedo, etc. They'd be used all year, of course. If we hadn't used last year's game very much, it would be one of the presents that would go off to Dr Barnado's before Christmas. We had to send a few things off - at least one each - every year, so that the boys and girls there could have some presents and to make room for our new ones.
Spirograph provided hours and hours of entertainment for years. Nice packs of playing cards were often in our stockings, and they got lots of use too.
Painting by Numbers was always popular - again, hours of entertainment and a nice(ish) picture to enjoy thereafter. (Mine had always to be or include an animal, or I wasn't interested.)
Jigsaws ditto.
But of all the presents I was given as a child, two stick out in my memory the most.
'Zippie', a pyjama case that was a cuddly cat/bear type thing. I'd been told I had to save up the money myself. In fact I got halfway there, my grandmother put the other half and I got him for Christmas.
One of my aunts bought me two packs of crayons. They were Daley Rowney and I'd never had crayons I enjoyed using so much. I wasn't much of an artist, but they were so nice to use I did more colouring and sketching than I'd ever done before.
We were pretty well off, Dad was a Captain of Industry, but our presents weren't expensive. Looking back, I value them by the amount of entertainment they afforded, not by what they cost.
I begged for a pony every year, of course, but no such luck - or I'd have had a much shorter answer.
Topic: What was your ... (Read 4686 times)
