Christmas. The holiday that brings family together.  A holiday I have so many fond memories of.  The 7.5 ft tree decorated down stairs, the stockings hung over the fire place and my mom’s favorite Christmas village placed on the mantel, all sit in my memory, fresh.  Of course there was always Santa Claus leaving behind the coolest toys.  Lots of which are cool retro toys now.  Here are some of my favorites from days of Christmases past.

I had to be at least 4 or 5 when I got my Power Wheels.  I was super happy when I walked down stairs Christmas morning to see a green jeep parked right in front of the Zenith TV.  I knew that day, Santa (aka my mom) "got me" very well because the jeep was not that girly.  I felt like I was one of the coolest kids the on the block.  That Christmas night I was outside cruising around in my jeep playing red light/ green light with my new Fisher Price flash light.  Thanks to my Mom, I didn’t get to play with my jeep much and we ended up getting rid of it.  I still have very fond memories of my jeep.

Super Nintendo

At 6 years old I already had at least 3.5 years of gaming under my belt (long story about that).  Christmas 1992 made me a very happy camper when Santa brought me my very own Super Nintendo which came with Super Mario World.  Along with it I also got a Super Scope, Mario Paint, Donkey Kong Country, Zelda a Link to the Past, Super Mario All Stars and a Game Genie.  I even got a gamer chair.  I was set.  I was even more stoked when my Mom allowed for it to be hooked up downstairs on the Zenith console TV.  I spent many a day playing Super Mario Brothers, Zelda and my other games.  I still own my system to this day.  It still works and I have the original box.  My Super Nintendo is my pride and joy and I would not give it up for anything.

Stilts

Yes, Santa got me stilts one year.  While not a gadget like a Nintendo or something with power, it was still a toy I was very fond of that gave me hours of fun.  I had my own hang out area growing up, in the garage where I could listen to music and do my own thing.  Being the goofy person I was/am, I would get up on my stilts with music going and dance around.  It was guilt free fun and as a kid that's all we ever had.  Plus, it was great exercise.  I kept them until the day I grew out of them, but I wish I still had them.

 Sony PlayStation

I was happy with my Super Nintendo. I'm still happy with my Super Nintendo.  I also had a Game Boy for my portable needs as well.  Really wasn’t looking for any other game systems.  At this time the upgrade craze hadn’t really started and while there was Sega, Nintendo was still the main system everyone wanted.  That changed when PlayStation came out.  Now when PlayStation came out I didn’t jump right on board.  There wasn’t really anything that caught my eye that I wanted to play.  That all changed when one of my favorite groups of the 90’s released a game I had to have.  It was Spice World by the Spice Girls and I knew then I needed to ask Santa for the Sony PlayStation and the Spice World game.

Thank goodness Santa knew me so well because Spice World would become boring very quickly.  Along with my PlayStation I got Asteroids and Frogger which quickly became a couple of my favorite games.  Looking back, this is the first time I remember my gamer side and my pop diva side colliding, and thank goodness it was the last time it happened.