Tag: Sears play sets

Memory Lane: Sears-Roebuck Christmas Catalogue

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Here! Enjoy seven minutes’ worth of toys in the Sears-Roebuck 1960 Christmas catalog.

Oh, did I love those catalogs! I know it’s not quite what Christmas is about, and you can go too far–(Are you kidding? You can go way too far!) but come on, let’s get real: who doesn’t like to receive presents? Some of us like to give them, too.

I loved the “play sets” with mobs of little plastic figurines. Can I remember all the play sets that I had? Circus (I was, I think, five years old). Farm. Dinosaurs and Cavemen. African Safari. Cape Canaveral. Military Base (with spring-powered missiles!). The kid down the block had the Ben Hur set.

And then there were all the different construction sets with which you could design and build your own architectural fantasies. There was just no end to it. Sitting on the couch in the sitting room, watching the snow come down, and thumbing through the toys section in the catalog–was there ever a more pleasant way to spend a winter’s day?

Alas, there is no more Sears-Roebuck & Co., no more Sears Christmas Catalog.

Just memories.

[P.S.–That’s Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring in the background.]

Memory Lane: the Sears Christmas Catalogue

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

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Another dreary, grey, rainy day–and me without a Sears catalogue.

One of my coziest childhood memories is cuddling up on the sitting room couch with the Sears Christmas catalogue: and there’s no school, because it’s snowing like mad outside.

I felt like Howard Carter peering into Tutankhamen’s tomb, who answered, when asked what he could see, “Things! Wonderful things!” Bikes and pogo sticks. Toy guns and real guns (not much chance of me getting one of those!). Erector sets and plastic models.

But for me the ultimate treasure was the play sets. Like this farm set.

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I wasn’t much for army men, but oh!–all those cool animals in the farm set. And my Grammy gave it to me for Christmas that year. I still have some of those animals. When I see them, I remember her. And her Christmas tree, every year in the same corner of her living room. I still have a few of her ornaments, too, including the elf who winds up on our tree every year.

Yeah, I know it doesn’t count as holy–unless family, and love, and delight are holy, too. Gifts of God, who is the source of every good gift we’ll ever know.

P.S.–And get a load of those prices! The whole 100-piece farm set for $4.99. I can’t imagine what a toy like that would cost today.

Memory Lane: Bounty from Sears

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

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During my boyhood, at just about this time every year, we received our Sears-Roebuck Christmas catalogue. Oh, boy! My brother, my sister, and I spent hours and hours marveling at the treasures depicted therein.

My favorites were the various play sets, featuring a whole bunch of little plastic figurines with a nice big setting for them. My brother would have loved the one pictured above! You not only get lots of little cars, but also this wonderful service station plus parking deck.

We had play sets for the Age of Dinosaurs, a farm, Cape Canaveral–you could put your eye out with those spring-launched rockets–an army base, and a three-ring circus.

And look at the price–$4.98 for the whole shootin’ match, or you can get the super-colossal version for $7.98. These items now sell on eBay for hundreds of bucks apiece. I remember when I wanted the dinosaur set and my father said we couldn’t afford it, five dollars was just too much. I wound up getting it for Christmas, and I still have some of the dinosaurs today. (Wish I’d kept those rockets, though!)

Oh, so many play sets! King Arthur and his knights, Ben-Hur and his chariot race, Wagon Train, Fort Apache, the jungle trading post–I used to get off on just reveling in the pictures in the catalogue.

Now, I do realize that such things have nothing whatever to do with Christmas, the real Christmas, but are really just add-ons to express the joy we experience at the birth of Jesus Christ Our Lord. Without Him it’s only a festival of Mammon. We do have to take care, especially with our children, that this is clearly understood. We mustn’t celebrate the gifts; the gifts are a celebration of Christ.

But I will stack up the 1959 Sears Christmas catalogue against any cultural artifact of this present time, and come out way ahead.