My sister and I were hanging out downstairs a few days before Christmas and playing hide n seek and what not and we had these big shelves with all our toys on them.. well there was a blanket covering one of the corners of one so we took it off (not even thinking about Christmas) and we seen something we were excited to see... a Nintendo system.. haha... now it seems foolish.. but I remember how insanely slow those next few days went by until we could get that item for Christmas and play it for the first time.... I remember I didn't get one when they first came out because we had an atari which seemed advanced until we got ahold of that thing. 
good times puff_>>
-murph
good times puff_>>
-murph
When I was a kid back in New Jersey, my Dad had a restaurant in Union, NJ, and down the road in Hillside, NJ was a Lionel train factory. Well a lot of the guys from Lionel would come to eat in the restaurant and my Dad got friendly with them. One Xmas after I fell asleep, some guys from Lionel came over our house and set up a brand new train layout. The took a big piece of plywood and cut it in half and attached hinges so you could fold it up and put it away. I already had an 027 gauge freight train so they put that in the middle of the layout in a figure 8 with switch tracks so you could also make it go in a circle. My Dad bought me a new 0 gauge Santa Fe passenger train which they put on the outside of the layout in a circle with switch tracks to make it go in a smaller circle. Attached to the plywood board was a wooden board which held a brand new dual handled transformer and the switch track switches and other switches that controlled all the other accessories, like a cattle car, milk car and a log car. Best part was they drilled holes in the plywood and all the wires were under the board. This was probably the nicest present I ever got for Xmas.
Woke up one Christmas morning to my dad storming into my room asking me where my BB gun was...
Had no clue what was going on, was like WTF?
He said theres a rabid raccoon in the backyard and to keep the Dog inside!
So he gets the BB Gun and shoots out the window at the "raccoon".
Turns out it's just this Xmas wreath that blew into our yard, no damn raccoon out there! HAHA
So now every year we pull out the raccoon hat and give him a Daniel Boone wake up.
Best one was the year of the Tickle Me Elmo craze. I was quite young at the time, doing some last minute xmas shopping on xmas eve at Ames. These Tickle Me Elmo's were a big thing that year, people were getting like $700-$800 a pop for them. Well anyways were in line to checkout, and sure as shit this Ames worker comes out and sets up a display with 5-6 Tickle Me Elmos. I ran over and grabbed one without saying a work to my mother, and come running back. Think it cost like $25? We gave it to my father as a joke on X-mas, the video of his reaction to us giving it to him on xmas morning and not selling it on xmas eve was priceless.
Thank You for starting this thread Defying. Brings back some great memories.
Had no clue what was going on, was like WTF?
He said theres a rabid raccoon in the backyard and to keep the Dog inside!
So he gets the BB Gun and shoots out the window at the "raccoon".
Turns out it's just this Xmas wreath that blew into our yard, no damn raccoon out there! HAHA
So now every year we pull out the raccoon hat and give him a Daniel Boone wake up.
Best one was the year of the Tickle Me Elmo craze. I was quite young at the time, doing some last minute xmas shopping on xmas eve at Ames. These Tickle Me Elmo's were a big thing that year, people were getting like $700-$800 a pop for them. Well anyways were in line to checkout, and sure as shit this Ames worker comes out and sets up a display with 5-6 Tickle Me Elmos. I ran over and grabbed one without saying a work to my mother, and come running back. Think it cost like $25? We gave it to my father as a joke on X-mas, the video of his reaction to us giving it to him on xmas morning and not selling it on xmas eve was priceless.
Thank You for starting this thread Defying. Brings back some great memories.
I grew up poor... And I am not just saying I wasn't rich, I am saying poverty poor... this isn't for attention or sympathy but just to set the the story... I don't have a lot of positive Christmas memories but I have one that I would say is my overall favorite childhood memory... I woke and remember not seeing any gifts under the tree. I was young, probably 6 or so. My mom told me my gift is in the house hidden some where. So I begin searching and never found it. She finally told me to check the inside of the oven (which by the way was new, we didn't have a range in the house the first couple years we lived there, thats how poor). I opened it up and saw a Nintendo. I still remember that feeling and going crazy.... It was nice to have something that even a lot of my friends didn't have... It was amazing.. My mom later told me she would send me to bed early because she loved playing it too haha...
Visiting my grandparents in Antigua in the 80s and my grandfather caught a tartantula and put it under the tree for me as a gift...all wrapped up, but in a jar.....i remember thinking it was the coolest thing ever...we looked at it for a while and then let it go....I remember getting skateboards and a bike one time and a nintendo, but having grandpa catch me a spider that at the time I thought could have killed all of us was an awesome memory....RIP grandpa!
