Wyn Drabble: Memories of a Christmas past

Wyn Drabble's first memories of Christmas involve a Santa Claus in a department store. That's Santa above, by the way, not Wyn.

OPINION

My first memory of Christmas is a tad foggy but it probably involved Santa Claus in a department store.

I feel sure I would have been asking Santa for an electric train, a Meccano set or a full set of Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Christmas in those days appeared to start about the beginning of December.

Nowadays it seems to start in late September or certainly at the beginning of October which means that, by the beginning of December, we have already tired of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and can recite the names of all the reindeer.

When I was a kid we never had a Christmas tree so I just had to make do with looking at other people's.

It wasn't until we had our own children that a Christmas tree became an annual feature and we still have the same one (artificial, some-assembly-required) nearly four decades on.

What we lost in the arboreal department we certainly made up for in the matter of festive comestibles.

I can definitely remember a stuffed, roasted goose one year. The fare was always traditional; I feel the barbecue-style Christmas was a later development.

One thing I do clearly remember was that the receptacle we left out on Christmas Eve was not a stocking but a pillowcase. It was clearly a case of capacity; a stocking only had about a foot of usable space.

"When I was a kid we never had a Christmas tree so I just had to make do with looking at other people's."

I recall, around age 7 or 8, I tried to trick Santa.

I tied a length of cotton around my finger and attached the other end to the pillowcase which was at the foot of the bed. When the jolly man had finished his milk and biscuits and went to fill my pillowcase with goodies, I would be yanked awake.

Or so I believed. Santa was clearly cleverer than I thought and probably travelled with a pair of scissors for snipping kids' cotton connections.

Kids' wish lists for Santa have certainly changed over the decades. Today's child might ask for PS5 or Xbox Series X, gifts which I can't possibly comment on because I don't know what they are. I'm sure Santa will know.

Let us now examine some popular gift requests from decades past and we will soon see how things have changed,

2000s – Nintendo Wii. I know it's a family game console and it was supposed to be heaps of fun but beyond that I comprehend little.

1990s – Beano Babies and Tickle Me Elmo. At least we're getting into a realm I understand now. To make Elmo laugh, you just had to squeeze him and that's not too technologically challenging for me.

1980s – Cabbage Patch Kids and Rubik's Cube (invented in 1974 but not marketed by Ideal Toy Corp until 1980).

1970s – Star Wars action figures. Original 70s ones are now collectors' items and can fetch big bucks.

1960s – GI Joe. The girls had Barbie so the boys needed Joe, cleverly marketed as an "action figure" so boys were not seen as playing with dolls.

1950s – Mr Potato Head, Barbie, Hula Hoop and Play-Doh. What a bumper decade!

1940s – Slinky. Yes, it still makes appearances but was invented in 1945 by mechanical engineer, Richard James. It slinks down stairs and you watch it, then you do it again. And again.

1930s – Shirley Temple doll (curls and dimples included). In 2010 an original Shirley Temple doll sold for more than US$1500.

1920s – Yo-Yo. Versions did exist in ancient cultures but it took a 1920s marketing supremo, Don Duncan, to make it into a good little earner.

So what would I like from Santa this year?

Just a human teller in a bank that's open, free cricket on TV and a partridge in a pear tree.