Merry Christmas Eve! The big day is almost here - hopefully your Christmas shopping is done, the presents wrapped (or nearly wrapped), the food is ready to go, and you're all excited to see what Santa has left under the tree for you. Like a good blogger, I'm writing this post well in advanced, but I bet Christmas Eve me is very excited for tomorrow - they'll be Christmas films on, Christmas Carols playing, last minute Christmas prep getting done, and all culminating in watching the Vision Australia Carols by Candlelight on the tellie tonight. I wanted today's post, seeing as it is so close to Christmas, to be all about taking a trip down Christmas memory lane (aided along by photos and home movies), and sharing some of my favourite Christmas presents as a kid. Kind of like a retrospective 'What I Got For Christmas' post... Before we start, you'll see that I've aptly named this post "Part One", and that's because well, I'm 23 and tomorrow marks my 23rd Christmas, so that's a lot of Christmases and presents to look back on. So to ensure I still have some fantastic Christmas posts for next year, I've decided to just focus on the first ten years of my life, because there are actually a lot of presents I wanted to talk about. So let me take you back 23 years so my very first Christmas... I was born in September 1995, so I don't really remember my first Christmas, but that's what photos are for! My mum is one for taking lots of photos, and even to this day, she still loves taking photos of Christmas hauls or unwrapping presents (which is going to make this blog post so much easier to write!). It's obviously hard to remember things you got and used as a baby, but there's something that I kind of (maybe) remember. It is, what I'm going to call, one of those 'activity center' toys. Those toys you give to babies and toddlers that have lots of different moving parts so that they can develop their cognitive skills. I definitely have a faint recollection of playing with this... Christmas number two definitely has some presents I remember, even though I don't have any recollection of Christmas itself. It was also a very good year present-wise. Probably the best present from 1996, and one I still have to this day, although I don't use it, is a rocking horse. It's not your traditional rocking horse, but a rocking horse none-the-less. This thing got a workout when I was a kid, and even all my cousin's loved it whenever they came around. The rocking horse currently lives in our spare room, and it's definitely something I'll pass on to my future children. The next memorable present is a little wheelbarrow, which again, I still have, although it doesn't really do much these days. I remember using this all the time as a kid, trying to help my parents in the garden or just carting around random things. Some other memorable prezzies from that year was a pram (every girl needs a pram for their baby doll), a little wooden trolley (that I remember totally ruining by painting when I got older), and one of those wire-ball thingies (again, another toy for cognitive skills). As the Christmases go on, the better the presents became, and the more I can remember, and 1997 saw Santa give me an awesome swing-set (he sent a slide attachment the following year). I feel like so many people had these swing-sets growing up, and mine is actually still in our backyard, even though it's been years since anyone actually used it. Under the tree was also a cot for a doll, which I remember so vividly - I'd always make sure my doll was tucked into her cot before I went to bed. And something I had totally forgotten about until I saw the photo was a plastic cooking set of pots and pans (and I'm assuming some crockery and cutlery) that I remember playing with all the time. I kind of which I still had them just for the mems... My 1998 Christmas haul was a good one. The day did start out a little rough as I was ill in the morning and during the gift-giving portion of the day (I have no idea what was wrong, but I do remember laying on the couch during the whole thing). The one gift I actually remember getting (aided by old home movies) is a little clothes line from my Nan & Pop. I have no idea what made them think I wanted a little clothes line, but it was actually a pretty cool present that did come in handy (I used to hang paintings on it to dry and I washed my doll's clothes too). I also got a wading pool that we ended up using that afternoon - because apparently I was well enough by then to be out playing around in three inches of water. The other awesome present I got, and another I still have today, is a Thomas The Tank Engine track set (although, this wasn't actually Thomas, but was part of the Tomica World collection). Over the years, I added to this so much with two full sets and many little expansions so I could create awesome tracks for all my trains. These are stored away under our spare bed, and I totally want to drag them out and play around with them... I also vaguely remember a game called 'Funny Frogs', and I'm very tempted to trawl eBay to find a copy. Christmas number five in 1999 was another pretty good year for presents, with the best (and biggest) being a two storey doll house. I thought this was such an amazing gift and I loved decking it out with furniture and making sure my little dolls had the best house to live in. This is another present that is tucked away in our spare room, and will also be something I can pass onto my own kids in the future. I also got a really cute blow-up chair, which I don't remember ever having, but clearly I did at some point (blow up furniture is such a 90s/early 00s thing - is it still a thing people buy/want?? Because I lowkey want a blowup chair...). Plus, Santa also delivered a really cool kids keyboard that I had so much fun with (and my parents probably regretted buying.) We survived the Y2K Bug and were able to celebrated Christmas in 2000, and to celebrate, Santa brought me a little laptop! This was probably one of my favourite toys as a kid and I can vividly remember some of the 'educational' games that it had on there. Is it weird that as a 23-year-old I want to get my hands on this computer again? I must have also started getting into Barbie during the year, because I got a Barbie Scooter! Anything to do with Barbie is so cool, and I do actually still have all my Barbie stuff, stored in a box under our spare bed (and I totally still have the urge to play with them now). Plus, Santa also sent me some yellow & pink plastic heels, which I ended up wearing (or at least taking and showing everyone) to Christmas with the extended family later that day. Talk about clopping around the house! More Barbie, Thomas the Tank Engine, and a baby doll? 2001 was AMAZING! My love for Barbie was still going strong, and now I had a wardrobe to store all her (and her off-brand friends) clothes in, because she had a lot of clothes. I also got my second Thomas the Tank Engine set, this time with actual Thomas, which meant being able to create cooler tracks. And I finally got a proper baby doll, and one that you could actually feed 'milk' to (although liquid literally went straight through her, so it was pretty messy). Again, she is another toy that is stored away for the future. I also got a flower pressing gadget, and I went to town on pressing all the flowers and leaves in the garden. Not that I ended up doing anything interesting with them anyway... The older you get, the better the presents get - or at least you're able to remember them better. Probably my favourite thing from 2002, and a present I totally regret giving away a few years ago, was a Fashion Designer drawing kit. You would design an outfit from the three pieces (head, top and bottom), then with paper over the top of the creation, rub a crayon over it to get the silhouette, then you'd colour it in! I had so much fun with this mixing and matching all the templates to create crazy or beautiful outfits. The other awesome present was a pair of car-shaped bucket stilts. Gosh, did I make a noise using these around the house! By the time I had Christmas with my extended family in early January, my cousins had loved using these, and I was glad they were given their own to use - "now you can stop using mine." There was also something called 'Capital Letters & Numbers', which I can vaguely remember loving, but really wish I could properly remember (or see in the photo) what it was all about. I don't really know what I hauled in 2003, mainly because my mum didn't actually take a haul photo. But the one thing I do know I got, because it was apparently the only thing worth photographing, was a BMX bike! I was way too keen to get outside and start riding around, and probably didn't want to get ready for Christmas with the family, just so I could ride around all day. 2004 was like the year for awesome and memorable presents. It was the second year Australian Idol had been on the air, and I was obsessed (still upset that Anthony Callea didn't win season two!) so I got a 2004 poster book. This second season is probably my favourite and I actually still have the book at the bottom of one of my desk draws. I must have also shown some interest in netball (despite never actually wanting to play the game) because I got a netball ring for the backyard. I actually loved having this and would shoot some hoops a few times a week. Shrek 2 also came out in 2004, and I feel like I saw this at the cinema, so Shrek merchandise was very abundant. I feel like I got the weirdest piece of Shrek merchin the form of a shower cap (with ogre ears and all), a green mitt and shower gel/bubble bath. Other presents included a sewing box (because all nine year olds want a sewing box...), a Russian nesting doll, and an off-brand Game Boy thing (you know, those cheap ones that had tetris-y type games on it). Finally we've reached 2005 (see why I didn't want to do every single Christmas since 1995?). My love for Australian Idol was still strong, particularly my love for the first two seasons (honestly, they were the greatest seasons of Australia Idol, don't @ me). I got Shannon Noll's second album 'Lift', as well as Anthony Callea's debut album 'Anthony Callea' - you can tell I was a fan of the runners-up moreso than the winners! In case anyone is wondering, my favourite songs from each album are Anthony's 'Rain' and Shannon's 'Now I Run' and 'Give It Away'. And I was now all set for school with an awesome The Saddle Club book bag (who else had book bags in Primary School for library days?). And probably the best gift from the year, and one I've talked about in a post somewhat recently, was the game 'Rush Hour', which is still such a fun game to play and I was very obsessed with in 2005/06 (to the point where I got three expansion packs, and probably had my eye on a few more). Boy oh boy, has this been a journey! Going back through our photo albums to find all these Christmas' has been so fun and very, very nostalgic. It's been so cool to not only see what I was given for Christmas each year, but also to see when I got some of the presents I can actually remember. There are definitely a few presents I wish I still had shoved at the back of my cupboard, and I'm very tempted to start trawling eBay to see what I can find - the nostalgia is real people! I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas Eve and a fabulous Christmas tomorrow, or just a nice holiday break if you don't celebrate Christmas. Whether you're having a massive family Christmas, catching up with friends, or just having a chilled day with a loved one, I hope your day is filled with love, laughter and some yummy food. Merry Christmas! Victoria :) You May Also Be Interested In...
|
Categories
All
Affiliates
See DISCLAIMER.
|