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Weeds: Memories of Christmas wishing and hoping

The kids’ Christmas Bible — the 1970 Sears Wish Book for Christmas.

If Randy isn’t writing this week, that means he’s either planting or harvesting. As a pinch hitter for Weeds, this would be considered my “September call-up” after the initial “call to The Show” last May.

Ah, this time of year. I love fall! That is, if winter doesn’t come early. When you are a kid, you can’t wait for snow to play in and that first snow usually means that Christmas is coming sometime soon! Sometime in the fall, people wonder who will “jump the gun” on the starting line of the Christmas season.

Before “free 2-day shipping,” Internet, and Google, somewhere in the 1960s and 70s of my youth, there was a definite coming together of fall and Christmas. They arrived by mail sometime in the autumn: the Christmas catalogs! I am referring to those early years in life where it was “better to receive than to give.”

Its origins date back to 1833, but by 1968 Sears officially called it “The Wish Book.” JC Penney called theirs “The Christmas Place.” Montgomery Ward simply had the “Christmas Catalog.”

Go with me here, back to a time before all your growth plates closed. You are just getting home from school and somewhere between the mailbox and the kitchen cupboard you spot today’s mail. There it is! Picture an  imaginary golden, glittery ray of light beaming on the Christmas catalog and a chorus of angels singing “AAAHHH.” All of Santa’s hard work and the latest in toy models have become your living Christmas dream. And it is all ready for your fingertips, eyeballs and imagination to devour!

Dean Brinkman, circa 1970, when the Sears Catalogue’s arrival signalled the start of the Christmas season.

Mothers and fathers know this begins children’s unofficial game clock to Christmas. READY! GET SET! DROOL! After its arrival, herein lies the pinnacle of the biggest and best toy store ever assembled. It is printed on gatherings of colorful, as well as black and white, silky smooth coated, attenuated catalog sheets. Now Christmas couldn’t come fast enough, and time went even slower. As a matter of fact, time stopped. Will Christmas EVER get here?

You talk about parental subliminal bribery! This marks Day One in avoiding that “lump of coal” for a present under the tree because it means you can start your Christmas list with this “book of dreams.” This means a few more weeks before Christmas to brush up on your behavior and getting on the “good list” vs. the “bad list.” Now Moms and Dads everywhere have the mental ammo to wager and measure your attitude, while you mind your “Ps and Qs”, practice your manners, and do your chores, homework, and hygiene without being asked. You are counting on the fact that Mom, Dad, and Santa are watching.

Understand there is a pecking order for this magical book. Like most things in your “house of siblings” the order goes from oldest to youngest. “If you know what’s good for you.” When it’s your turn, every kid knows that this book is read back to front. So off you go, heading straight to the back of the book for every assembled toy known to mankind.

If only your school books got this kind of daily attention between now and Christmas! The book became a youthful, food-crumbed, finger-printed, dog-eared, and Bic pen-stained annual Christmas staple. Its pictorial ownership became identified by its carefully caressed and memorized numbered pages and highlighted with the personal desired cravings of circled, starred, underlined, or even signed markings from the future desirer of indicated bagatelles.

Santa’s helpers and elves not only worked at the North Pole. This mailer confirmed toy-making favorites from toy box regulars like Mattel, Kenner, Hasbro, Tonka, Milton Bradley, Playskool, Lionel, Tyco, Coleco, Match Box, Parker Brothers, AFX, Ideal, Marx, Aurora and Fischer Price.

Many bowls of cereal were shared with this book while associated slurping and sifting through its pages. After school meant lying on your belly, hands cradling your jaw, feet crossed, perusing and musing into the future premeditated ownership of what each toy will look like in your house under your tender loving care. There are dreams of the newest toys joining forces with your current toy inventory. With an information overload through a child’s sensory perception, it really was the anticipatory Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

Oh sure, later on in the season, there will be letters to Santa and maybe describing “the most wanted list” while sitting on the lap of the “man in red” at a nearby store or mall. However, nothing compared to the arrival of the Christmas catalog.

Like many great things gone by, my grown children do not know of the Christmas catalog era. We now have everything at our fingertips in that hand-held mobile computing device we call the smartphone. The internet has almost single-handedly wiped out American downtowns, many malls, big box, and department stores. And the Christmas catalog.

So as the leaves start to fall, and fall starts to leave, my mind loves to drift back to those Days of Wonder. Thanks to my mom saving just about everything, I have our original copies of the greatest toy stores in printed catalog form. My fingertips may not be as warm these days, but my heart still is when my corrected vision gazes back and harvests those days and nights of wearing footed pajamas, and dreaming:

“Mom? Dad? I really, REALLY want a Vikings vs. Chiefs Super Bowl electric football set! I cleaned my room and put all the clothes away in the drawer!”

So, what did you want?

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