Christmas presents when you were young

One year I had a miniature sewing machine. I remember going to the tailors on Christmas Eve with my dad to pick up a pair of trousers he had had altered, and telling the man I had asked Father Christmas for a sewing machine. He gave me a bag of cloth samples "to practice on"!

The best presents I ever had was the year I couldn't decide what I wanted most a black boy doll or a dolls house and I got both!! I also always had Beano Dandy and Bunty albums but I had always read them before Christmas because I knew where my mother hid them on top of her wardrobe so I climbed up each year the minute her back was turned to read them. Then I was sorry on Christmas Day.

This has brought back so many memories☺ My parents were separated and I remember when I was 5 years old on Christmas eve standing on the table with my arms around my dad asking him to stay. My lovely presents were a bride doll in a box, a sit in wooden train made by grandad, a tricycle with a tin 'boot' on the back and a Triang dolls house which I sold a couple of years ago for £600!
My aunt took me to Fenwicks in Newcastle when I was 5 at Christmas and I chose a small baby doll with dark hair. Years later I returned from work to find my mum had put her in the dustbin because she had hardly any hair, it was glued on, and she had an arm missing. I retrieved her only to find her missing again ?

Post office set, sugar mice, books etc. but one thing i remember especially was a knitted hat/bonnet with a hairband set just back from the rim to keep it on. I loved it!

My favourite was a Sindy doll which I'd wanted for ages. I also loved getting a sewing box when I was about 10 - my daughter uses it now!

One year when I was about 7 I got a sledge and that year it actually snowed on Christmas Morning, so I was able to get out and had an amazing morning!

Printing sets that got you covered in ink and annuals. I also got a doll that you had coloured plastic records to insert so she would sing. I think she walked too.

A John Bull printing set (a joint present to my sister and I)

A film star annual
A 'heroines' annual (Edith Cavell, Amy Johnson, Joan of Arc, etc)

All age about 11
My dad must have had a win on the horses!!!!

Those books were read dozens of times .... But we had a weekly mobile library too

I remember going into our shed and catching dad making something. He said it was a hen house. At Christmas I received a dolls cradle and it was what he'd been making! Mum made dolls clothes out of my outgrown clothes and I recognised them too.

My parents did their best, we had the compendium of games and plasticine and dolls but one year, my sister and I received from an aunt and uncle, who had emigrated to Canada, pants and an under-slip in pink and white nylon. We felt like film stars, I think I was about 10 and my sister 6.........wow Canada seemed like a dream place.

I've just remembered getting a Vulcan sewing machine -it was tiny and didn't work very well but I loved it. That must have been the start of my favourite hobby.

Oh my! I do remember playing for hours with the Bayko set with rods and resin walls. I see they now appear in auctions. I also remember a vending machine that dispensed tiny chocolate bars, and a washing machine that washed dolls clothes, not sure if it had batteries or more likely a hand cranked propellor in it to swish the water

We were spoiled at Christmas because my sister and I were the only children in the family with Mum, Dad, 2 Grannies, 2 Aunties and 2 Uncles all buying for us. Best ever present however was the doll's house Mum and Dad made for us from an orangebox. It only had two rooms - one papered, carpeted and curtained to match our livingroom, the other an exact copy of our bedroom. It even had working ceiling lights with tiny switches on the wall.

How my parent's managed to construct and hide this masterpiece in a prefab without us suspecting anything is quite amazing but I know they had as much pleasure in the designing and making as we did playing with it.

I remember having a dolls house too. It wasn't new; my father saw an ad in the local paper. He bought some special brick paper to re-cover the outside, and some left over wallpaper went on the inside. I thought it was very special. I think the only Christmas present I was disappointed with was a walking talking doll, whose legs didn't articulate in a way that enabled her to sit. And she didn't fit in my doll's pram because she was quite big. Always an ungrateful child! One year my nephews had a Crow Shoot, which we all thought was great fun. The crows sat on a wire stand and you had to fire corks from a pop gun and try and knock them off! Another nightmare for 'elf and safety if they were around these days - the targets weren't always the crows! .

The Christmas when I was seven, 1930, I was given a full size bisque head baby doll. Billy Boy.I have always treasured it making new clothes for him but a few weeks ago I dropped it breaking the head into many pieces. I was quite upset so my 67 year old son came bringing the teddy bear I gave him for his first Christmas to console me.

and Bijou

Yes I too rememnber the Bayko building set which I loved. Also there was another construction set with tiny ceramic bricks which you stuck together with paste. When you'd built your building and got tired of it you put it in a bowl of water and the paste dissolved and you could re-use the bricks.

My best present ever, when I was a little boy of about 7, came from some friends of my Dad at the other end of the country. It was a stout cardboard box. Inside was a super collection of real tools. Clamps, saw, pliers, screwdriver, fretsaw, a hand-drill, drill bits, hammer,a little plane, screws and nails. It wasn't a kit but a well chosen set of tools for a boy who was already mad on woodwork. My Dad showed me how to use them, and supplied bits of wood. He warned me sternly "I don't want to find you drilling into the furniture." Sixty years later I have a wonderfully equipped hobby workshop but I still have some of those well chosen tools. What happiness I have had from them.

I love these memory threads.We always used to get annuals, and I loved the Rupert Bear ones. Later, it was School Friend, Girls Chrystal and Girl. I'm repeating myself from another thread, but we had presents made by by Dad - desks, garages, dolls houses etc. We, too, loved the games compendiums.
One Christmas both my sister and I had chicken pox and we had popper beads. My gran quipped that you couldn't see where the popper beads ended and we began. We both felt ill but made and wore those popper bead necklaces.
My brother had a Mobo Pony one year. You pressed down on the pedals with your feet, its legs went back and forth and it moved along very slowly. He was beside himself with joy.
We used to get one present each from my parents and that was that - plus presents from relatives. It's changed a bit - children seem to get multiple presents now. It's gone a bit OTT.

Compendium of Games? yes Katyk, was your doll a 'Rosebud' doll Charleygirl? I still have mind,hard plastic, they weren't exactly cuddly but I'd push mine around in a dolls pram, my Dad made me a dolls house one year, still have it, from a kit from a magazine (Woman's Weekly?). My birthday is in November so I often had a joint Christmas and birthday 'main' present, a second hand bike one year and a second hand portable typewriter another. Loved the plasticine strips and annuals too

I used to have ALL my presents at once in a pillow case, brought by father christmas. Some said love from Auntie Doris etc but I was told people had sent presents to F C for him to deliver. Unlabelled ones were from him.
I always got an annual which I looked forward to - either Rupert or 'Fudge the Elf ' -does anyone remember him? He had a friend called Speck.
Some things I remember were: a magic painting book (you used water - much better than today's ones), knitted angora boleros (always worn for birthday parties) Secret seven and other Enid Blyton books, dolls, paper doll dressing books. My grandmother made me a golliwog which was my favourite toy - much disapproved of these days. My father made me a dolls house out of an old radio case, open at the front with just four rooms, all papered and carpeted, which I loved. I do remember one year coming downstairs and finding a dolls pram - amazing!! I was told F C couldnt fit it in th pillow case!

And I too had a set of Wades Whimseys - China animals , when I was older and wish they hadnt been thrown away.

Wade Whimseys came in crackers - I had some as presents too, and had a large collection which I have handed on to the DGC but I'm not sure that they will treasure them as much as I did.

Dad made me a doll's house covered in brick paper and I still have the plastic furniture upstairs somewhere; unfortunately my DN played with the house and got the better of it in the end.
A big walkie-talkie doll which I named Caroline.

I had a stove one year which lit with methylated spirits underneath!
And a robot and a chemistry set (not all girlie toys).

I was inundated with diaries: schoolgirl diary, Guide diary - likewise annuals.

Grandma60 I remember Avon Pretty Peach as well, I got some one Christmas & loved it. I once received underwear from an old Auntie - not quite what a teenage girl should wear more an adult set!!! Mum did see the funny side. Loved Sindy doll & also had a watch with a china Sindy one Christmas.Always a Tangerine in my stocking & a brand new (old) penny. Paint set or crayons, fuzzy felt when I was little. Colouring books including "magic colouring book".

A dolly I called Jane. When I turned her on her front she said ma-ma. I still have her 68 years on but she looks a bit poorly now. Also loved to receive the 'Girl' annual each year. My sister used to get 'Schoolfriend' annual so we shared them.