Christmas presents when you were young

I recall coming home from a Sunday school party when I would have been 5. Santa had given me a Little Housewife set - brush, dustpan, possibly an iron I think.
My mum and I visited friends on the way home and they enthused about my lovely present.
I remember being slightly confused as to what was so lovely about it. I'm still having trouble with that.

ninathenana I think it was the Pretty Peach that started me on a lifetime love of nice creams and lotions.

The things which stick in my mind are the Rupert annuals, the Beano and Dandy annuals, Famous Five/Secret Seven/Jennings/William/Billy Bunter books which I read on Christmas night in front of the fire. The wireless would be on and the Christmas tree would be on a table with the candles lit on the end of every branch! We all survived though.

Other things I had were a French knitting set, a loom, a bus conductors outfit, an Airfix kit [aeroplane or ship] and I had some skates one year which I loved.
I always wanted a tricycle but my family weren't well off. I wanted a scooter but was told it would make one leg longer than the other so I didn't get one. I always wanted a black doll too but never got that either.

But books were always my priority. I used to get a book every year in the Cherry Ames/Nurse series from a family friend who obviously wanted be to be a nurse! I never became one.

I never wanted dolls, but one year when I was about six, a relative sent me a black doll, and I really liked it (it was the colour) so much nicer than all the pink ones.She had big brown eyes and a mauve knitted top and trousers.
when I was about eight, I had a rocking horse, and although I had really wanted it ( it was very likely second hand) I soon became bored with it, I think I was far too old for it in the first place.When I was ten, I had my older cousin's bike as a present ( loved it).
Otherwise I remember, the strip plasticine, jigsaws, tins of Bluebird toffee, and an annual Film Fun was my favourite, but when younger it was a Rupert Bear annual.

So many memories! I used to fill my DC's Christmas stockings just as mine were filled - an orange, a shiny red apple, a few nuts, a silver coin, a sugar mouse, a bag of chocolate pennies and a couple of little things, such as crayons and toffee. The difference was that they then had a pile of presents as well, and I used to get one or two. Plus annuals, usually a Rupert one (June or Bunty in later years), and a Broons/Oor Wullie (alternating each year). One main present that sticks in my mind was a small tin kitchen range that had an oven and rings that actually heated up, courtesy of some type of spirit you poured in the back. You could boil a little pan of water on it! Whether I was supervised whilst using this death trap I don't recall, but I did love it. I hankered after a Tressie doll for a couple of years (her. hair. grows!) but never got one, and neither did anyone else I knew. My mother made her disapproval of "adult" dolls very clear

The Pretty Peach range was adorable - all those little containers and such a lovely smell. My older sister used to buy me those.

I remember these from various years: -metal roller skates, a doll that you could bathe - even had its own cake of soap - a smoker's set in chocolate with coconut tobacco - a blackboard easel and chalk - a doll's house that my dad had made from a large drawer and a Triang scooter (pale blue). I always gave my mum talc or bathcubes but I can't remember what dad got - probably a spill holder I had made with lots of coloured spills that you lit from the coal fire. There were many home knitted mittens and little toys, etc. My mum continued to send us a "stocking" of little gifts even after we were married. Happy memories!

In our family the tale was often told about me getting a doll's pram for Christmas.I remember it well. It is alleged that I said " Oh great! Now I've got two, because I've got one just like it on top of Auntie's wardrobe."

I was a precocious child.

I don't think we ever got gifts from grannies, aunties, etc, (or at least none that I remember). I do remember getting " Here's My Heart" by Avon when I was about 13 from my mother's friend, because my mother used to babysit for her. I felt so grown up and sophisticated!

Oh yes! the smokers set in chocolate also the little Post Office set, and pretend sweet shop.

I never had any Avon gifts.

I had the chocolate smokers set too, and the sugar mice along with a clementine and handful of nuts at the bottom of the stocking. One year I had a sugar pig which was much too much sugar even for me.

Just remembered the terracotta hedgehog where you put in some compost, sowed some seeds and grew cress out of its head. I'm a very keen gardener now, maybe that was the start!

Don't think my doll was quite that big ninathenana, must have been a different make. I remember it had long eyelashes and curly blonde hair. I called it Karen. Don't think I was a doll sort of child, more of a book worm.

Every Christmas all I asked for was a doll and a book. I always got them, plus all sorts of things my Dad wanted to play with. So a train, cars, Bayko, meccano even, a kite that my Dad and Uncle flew for hours . There were usually home made dolls clothes and something to wear. Christmas was always shared with other family and I loved it.

I'm now remembering a " walkie talkie" doll called Jennifer.
She was Afro- Caribbean. ( Or black, as we said in the olden days!)

At about 14 I got the Dansette record player and 3 6/8d record tokens. I think I bought Please Please Me by the Beatles, I Remember You by Frank Ifield, & it may have been Donald, Where's Your Troosers? by Andy Stewart.

One year later I got the wee transistor radio in the leather case with the earphone.

I've written about it before, but my best Christmas present ever was the rocking horse my father made me when I was six. Nothing since has been quite as perfect and I played with it endlessly. Utter happiness!

I also had the strips of plasticine, which I LOVED ( How easily pleased we were then, oh and marbles, I collected those. An annual of some sort too. My best present that I remember though was a three wheeler bike. I can see it now, it was new and shiny and red.

I had forgotten about marbles Shanma, my father made a sort of arch thing with numbers to roll them through. Also we used to swap different marbles, a different life wasn't it.

I had forgotten swapping marbles as well, and the girls used to collect and swap beads. I think a glass bead was worth 2 plain ones.

My parents weren't keen on Christmas for some reason. We wouldn't even have a Christmas tree unless a patient got us one and set it up. On Christmas morning we'd have one of dad's old socks with tangerine and nuts (no sweets for the doctor's children!). No toys. Usually there were presents from patients : knitted cardigans, diaries, and one year huge pants. Even now I don't think I'd fit them!
Luckily our kind Gran always tried her hardest to get us a toy each. Our other Granny always got us clothes and did really try to make her house as festive as possible. We alternated each year between the two sets of Grandparents. Dad was always on call so just not a very relaxed day.

Anybody remember Chatty Cathy and Sheena doll whose hair would grow with a wind of the wheel on her back? Mine wore a purple trouser suit and I thought of her as a real business woman, which I am not and never have been. I loved and still do, my tiny tears, of course, my doll's house and a farm set which I have just found on ebay and hope I get it so I can play all over again before selling it back on, having relived my childhood for a little bit.

I also had a set of Ken Dodd's Diddymen, a Russian doll set, lots of little Wade animals and a matchbox collection. Goodness knows where they all went, I think my parents got rid of them when we moved when I was 16 years old. I was very proud of that matchbox collection, I had collected them from all over as we had gone on holiday. I was a child who treasured my toys, never wrecked anything so it was all sentimental to me.

That is probably why I have bought back some of my things of yesteryear. I bought a doll's house, very similar to my old one, I've just bought some clothes for my tiny tears and her little friend who is only a mere 30 years old. They have brought pleasure and the doll's house will be sold soon. Never the dolls though.

What would you buy back if you could?

One of my very best presents was a doll's house- I loved it. It came with small furniture so that kept me amused for ages.

I loved my second hand 2 wheeler. I remember my dad huffing and puffing, hanging on to the rear so that I did not fall off.

I would buy back a Christmas with my mum and dad when i was a child and it was all so magical!!!!!

Oh I remember Pretty Peach! And one year in my stocking ( I must have been about 10) I got a tiny blue bottle of perfume called Soir de Paris. It was such a lovely thing. I always had a Blackies Children's Classic book in my stocking as well. Probably to keep me quiet!
I think my favourite present was my Britain's Floral Garden set. I used to add bits to it with my pocket money and I played with it for years.
Ironically I can't stand gardening in real life!

Lots of my presents were postal orders which my mother put in my Post Office book. The only real presents were from my parents. I loved my black doll which back then was known as a Piccaninny. Mum used to knit lots of dolls' clothes as presents. Books were my favourite presents though as I only got them for birthdays and Christmas, otherwise books came from the library. Annuals were School Friend, Girls Crystal, Brownie Annual, and large books of children's' tales, plus the usual Enid Blytons and Heidi, Little Women, etc. Sometimes a new skipping rope, or a board game. My brother had a fort, boxing gloves, and annuals for boys.

I was another whose favourite present was a Bayko building set. The different sized metal rods would have the child safety experts throwing up their hands in horror, but I can't ever remember them being a problem, and it was great fun. I saw one at a toy auction recently and it brought back so many memories. Paint boxed always appeared from Santa; when I was older, my father bought me a box of Reeves water colour pans that could be refilled from tubes. I felt very grown up. There was always a Rupert book until I was about seven and I have been looking ever since for a 1951 edition that I can afford - they are rare - because it had one story in it that captured my imagination so completely.

I remember receiving toy Post Office sets, chocolate smoking sets and stockings with oranges, sugar mice abc nuts etc. But the one thing I do remember was asking for a Petite typewriter but getting a proper Brother one! To make thing worse, I preferred to play with my cousin's Tressy doll and couldn't wait to buy myself one using my saving stamps.