What was the one gift/thing/item you desperately wanted for Christmas (or your birthday), as a child, that you never received?

Warning #1: what follows has a number of references to the 80s and 90s.

Warning #2: there is nothing remotely deep, spiritual, insightful or inspiring to be found here today. It’s superficial, it’s a little nostalgic, and it’s just for fun. I may yet write a more serious one upon which I am currently ruminating … 

So with the warnings out of the way, and hopefully your expectations lowered somewhat, let me push on.

At our pre-grocery-shopping breakfast this morning my husband and I were chatting about the above question. I know the gift he’d never received was a train set. He even remembers having to give another kid a train set as a birthday present … ouch!! We gave him one for his birthday a few years back. 

The train set… See the shock on his face!

He tried to guess what mine was … “did you want a pony?” that particularly inspiring guess I think was due, in part, to the fact that we had just seen three men walking two ponies down the road. But no, I don’t think I ever wanted a pony … I wasn’t really a horse kind of girl. I don’t think I ever received or wanted a My Little Pony, or a Rainbow Brite doll. I had a little collection of seven Strawberry Shortcake figurines (correction have somewhere) from my 7th birthday cake .. but that was about as far as I ever went when it came to collectables.  

I didn’t have the Barbie collection — I only ever had one Barbie, whose hair I “fixed”, and then she went on a long, long holiday.  From memory I’d been specifically instructed not to alter her hair – I had a better idea. So she went to live in the cupboard, at least that’s where I think she went. So I never wanted the Barbie car/house …

I did receive the greatly desired Cabbage Patch Kid (her name was Jacinta Gabrielle). Yes I still have her somewhere, and my husband has attempted to throw her in the bin (he says they freak him out) and yes I did rescue her.

While this is not mine – she looks remarkably like mine.

Not sure why I rescued her other than I am ridiculously sentimental about some things, I’ve had trouble throwing toys out since hearing this poem as a kid.  I also received the distant relative of the Cabbage Patch slightly less popular but very close to it … Pumpkin Kid .. or something like that. It is important to note that I did not include this photo for the sole purpose of eliciting a response from my husband. 🙂 

I received the coveted “big girl’s” bike for my tenth birthday and then a while later fell off it, managing to break/fracture a rib.

But I think my favourite gift of my childhood/teen years happened during the Mickey Mouse watch outbreak of the early 90s. I was about 16 at the time – and I was one very happy girl (which was unusual for me at that age) when I opened my Christmas present to find this watch.

Apparently this watch now qualifies as “vintage”, which, I guess, makes me ancient?

I knew I wasn’t getting  the Mickey Mouse watch —I was not getting one, there was nothing that size in the pile of presents. I even remember the night before having a chat with myself about not being disappointed – it’s just a watch … you’ll get some lovely gifts, don’t let the disappointment show on your face, Christmas isn’t all about what you get etc, etc, by the morning I’d resigned myself to missing out, little knowing Mum and Dad had done the whole “large box hiding a smaller gift” trick – if you’re reading this kids – we have not done that this year … or have we..??? No, we haven’t. 

But enough reminiscing and back to the initial question: for me – surprisingly, or not, the one thing that came to mind that I wanted and never received was a specific pair of shoes. I had some absolutely amazing shoes as a kid – I think my mother had/has a bit of a thing for shoes, that apparently must have been some of the genetic material that she passed on to me. Now she could’ve passed on some additional height, or the slimmer frame, which my brother received … Yes, Mum, Dad, little bro’, I know you are all reading this but if I say it now I don’t have to bring it up at our Christmas dinner and we can avoid the unpleasantness of last year. 😉 

So my unrealised dream was a pair of these … a pair of wooden clogs/sandals …

I can understand, in part, why this dream remained unrealised. I can imagine that perhaps there might, on some occasions, have been a little noise created by them as I no doubt would have “clumped/clomped around the house”. In researching them it turns out that these ones in particular, are a souvenir from the Philippines !!

I now have no idea where I would have seen them or why I would have so desperately needed a pair … I would have been under 10 years of age at the time. 

Mum sent me a message last night asking for Christmas tips — yeah we like to shop up to the wire … that’s when the true inspiration comes!

So I gave her a vague list of things — world peace, the ability to nap during the day without feeling guilty … an olive tree – that one was serious, the others were too, but are perhaps more difficult to purchase and wrap.

I should have said, I want a pair of those wooden clogs, you remember the ones. 

Now over to you; what would you say to the initial question? 

Feel free to head over to the page on Facebook and write it up there – you never know who might be looking for last minute gift ideas!!

Have a wonderful Christmas if I don’t see you before then!!