Around the age of seven I developed insomnia. This insomnia became especially unbearable on Christmas Eve. Since my parents already saw 5:30 am as a Christmas morning wake up time as pushing it (there is video proof of us waking up at 1:30 am in 1983), I needed to find things to do to keep myself occupied. Luckily I learned to read very early on and come 1988 or 1989 I had access to the Disney Channel.
Some of you may remember a time when The Disney Channel actually used to show a balanced mix of TV programming. In the morning there was kid shows like Dumbo's Circus and Mouse Factory, then in the afternoon there was Kid's Incorporated and The Mickey Mouse Club. In the early evening there was family programming like Avonlea and various Disney Channel movies. After that there was Disney Night Time (and later on Vault Disney, but that's another entry entirely). Disney Night Time was chock full of concerts, Conversations with Carol Burnett and Conversations with Bob Hope, and old movies. On Christmas Eve they would play Christmas programming all night long. I remember year after year being wide away and watching
It's a Wonderful Life
The Bishop's Wife
The Judy Garland Christmas Show
and
Best of Bing Crosby Family Christmas Specials
Now thanks to YouTube and my DVD collection I can see these videos again!
Nowadays I spend part of Christmas Eve day watching
Emmett Otter's Jugband Christmas
Jim Henson's Christmas Toy
Muppet Family Christmas
and
Christmas Eve on Sesame Street
It's funny how when I was little I would watch the adult programming and now as an adult I spend Christmas Eve watching the kid's programming!
Yesterday, in the interest of killing time, I asked my students what they had asked Santa for. Their lists brought back fond childhood memories since most of the toys of my childhood have been recycled and re purposed. Later on I got to thinking about the Christmas toys I had loved and that I dreamed of getting.
My brother and I were lucky to have been very, very spoiled from the ages of birth to eleven (me)/ten (my Bro). Because we were very fortunate I only remember two toys that I desperately wanted but did not get. They are the toys that got away.
Toy That Got #1: Strawberry Shortcake Berry Happy Home
Unlike Toy That Got Away #2, I would still love to own this toy. In 1984 this was all I wanted for Christmas.... I strategized and figured I would ask for Rainbow Brite for my February birthday. I was coming of the high of the previous Christmas when my Grandmother got me a Cabbage Patch Kid (her name is Gloria Diane and she currently lives on my couch), and I figured that between Santa, my parents, or my grandparents someone would get me this house! Instead I got Rainbow Brite. She and I had good years together, but inside I always held a little piece of my heart for the Berry Happy Home.
Five years ago, while on a nostalgia kick I discovered wishbookweb.com. While perusing their scans of the 1984 Montgomery Ward catalog I found out why I didn't receive the Berry Happy Home.
Can you see the price quoted in the ad? They wanted $150.00 bucks for the Berry Happy Home .... in 1984!!!!!!!!! We were upper middle class, not millionaires! I have to confess that I occasionally search Ebay in the hopes of finding a fully furnished Berry Happy Home that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. So far it hasn't happened.
Fun Side note: See the Fisher Price dollhouse on the first page? I got that dollhouse from Santa in 1983. I loved that dollhouse ... until the day my brother colored all over it in what he still claims to this day, was retaliation for my coloring on something of his. I don't think I ever did, but he sticks to this story. We talked about it two weeks ago in the same conversation where I had his wife ask him if he was going to let his soon to be born baby girl play with his Legos, or was he going to get her her own.
He is still undetermined about whether or not he is willing to share his Lego collection with his offspring.... but I digress.
Toy That Got Away #2: Baby Alive
Oh, how I wanted Baby Alive. She drank, she ate, she went potty! Baby Alive was the number 1 thing on my Christmas list in 1985, but Christmas morning came and she was nowhere to be found. I wish I could tell you what I got instead, but I don't remember. I do remember the confusion and sadness I felt at the fact that Santa had done me wrong. I remember watching my best friend play with her Baby Alive and simmering. Years later, after financial tides had turned, when we were discussing past Christmases I finally asked my mother why I didn't get Baby Alive. She told me that she was all set to buy her for me when she found out that the powdered food rotted in Baby Alive's stomach. As an adult I can see that that is indeed a valid reason for not purchasing a toy, no matter how desperately she was wanted. By that point I had also been babysitting for two years and had changed my fair share of diapers. Changing diapers sucks. Why in God's name did I ever want a toy that pooped?
I hope that everyone has a wonderful holiday and that Santa brings you everything you asked for!
I stumbled across Ally's Fourth Grade Nothing blog earlier this week when in a fit of nostalgia I googled Swatch phones (blog about the teenage wonder that was the Swatch phone will come later). I was hooked from the first entry and I proceeded to spend the next two day's worth of free-time reading every single entry she has written. Such nostalgic fun! She is witty and has a really honest voice. Go check her out!
Fourth Grade Nothing led me to my next great discovery:
Nikki's blog, where she re-reads and recaps books from her youth, is my dream blog. I wish I had thought of it first ( I was planning to write a Series Loved, Some Lost post this summer and I'm still going to do it sometime soon), instead, right now, I will bow down at her feet and tell her she's a genius. I tore through the entire blog in two or three days. While reading I kept amazon.com open so I could add books to my "Used Kid's and YA Books I NEED to Track Down List" ... that list is getting pretty long now thanks to the dearth of great material I have (re)discovered over the last few days. Thanks Nikki, you rock :)
It is a documented truth that I don't deal well with stress. Unfortunately my life seems to be jampacked with stressors that I just can't seem to shake. Today, since I was off from work, was declared a mental health day.
I floated in the blowup pool in my yard, but pretended I was in the Barbados.
Thanks to the pool, my float, my book, and my Boys of Summer play list for providing me with four hours of bliss.
A special MVP award today goes out to Coppertone sunscreen and Bain de Soliel Orange Gelee. These are the scents of my childhood summers. My brother and I would get coated in Coppertone while my mother, grandmother, and aunt would be basted with Orange Gelee. The metal tube still basically looks the same. The scent is exactly the same. As soon as I smell it I am instantly transported back to Takanessee Beach Club. I spent my summers from birth to age 6 there, and if I think about it I can still hear the slap of the screen door to the Snack Bar and my grandmother's voice.
I've mentioned before that I'm a Disney nut. In addition to the Winnie the Pooh characters I have always held a fondness in my heart for Minnie Mouse. Perhaps it is because from an early age I have always been the tomboy with a group of guy friends, so I can appreciate a girl who runs with the boys, or perhaps it is my fondness for red backgrounds with white polka dots. Who knows? I do know that from the age of 5 to probably about 12 I always had the same white sweatshirt from Walt Disney World that had Minnie Mouse on it. I think I wore through 4 or 5 of them before I could no longer find one in my size. I have searched high and low, but I can't find an image of this sweatshirt on the Internet anywhere and due to the fact that I think I look like a troll in all childhood pictures over the age of 4 you will just have to take my word for it that this sweatshirt was awesome!
For a few years now I have been on the lookout for a replacement shirt, but unfortunately I am picky (some may say crazy). I have Minnie Mouse criteria. She has to be wearing the red, white polka dotted dress of my childhood. Not the vintage blue skirt, or just a red skirt, and surely not the pink, white polka dotted dress from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. An added challenge is that until further notice this shirt has to be plus sized.
I may not have found my dream shirt yet, but until I do I can make due with looking at these each day:
Photo from Amazon.com
Photo from Amazon.com
Every time I look down at them they make me smile. Even when I take my checkbook out to balance it!
In addition to my divine bag and wallet I've recently rediscovered other Minnie Mouse favorites. While fooling around on Itunes one day I found this:
Photo from Amazon.com
This was one of my favorite TV specials!!! In fact it is the first time I remember truly enjoying Elton John's "Don't Go Breaking My Heart". Our VHS copy bit the dust long ago, but fortunately Youtube was created and there are other nostalgia hounds like me out there!
This got me thinking about another Minnie favorite
Photo from Amazon.com
I hadn't thought about this album for years, but boy did my friends and I listen to it a lot. Interesting anthropological note though; this album came out in 1990, when I was 10. My friends and I still loved it because back then , at ten, you were still a kid. You weren't as worried about being trendy. Christa's voice doesn't hold up as well as it did in my memory, but the songs are still catchy. I've added it to my ipod because I know my students will love it. Some of the ballads are perfect for rest time :0).
Minnie was pro- girl power waayyy before the Spice Girls!
Welcome to Wandering & Wondering. I'm a newly 30 year old female who is a little lost and still trying to find my way in the world. Come read my ramblings about my passions: books, music, movies, TV, theatre, pop culture, travel, knitting, and recognizing life's absurdities.
