On the eve of the holidays, we decided to look into the not so distant past and remember what gifts the children enjoyed 15, 20, 30 years ago. Are you with us?
Nowadays it is very difficult to surprise the kids. This is the time we live in. Smart gadgets, digital technologies and their accessibility, toys – the eyes run wild. Accordingly, the demands of today’s children are getting higher. The entertainment industry is constantly working on this, creating more and more new idols for the young generation. So the parents are wondering what to put under the Christmas tree so that the child does not lose faith in miracles.
Do you remember what surprised us? What were we happy about? What were you looking for under the tree and jumping to the ceiling, finding the desired IT?
Some 15 years ago, children were happy if Santa Claus brought them a simple phone. Now you can’t look at such a push-button miracle without tears. And then … Paid incoming calls – even scary to remember! But right away – the first guy in the village.
Or a gameboy, for example. Owning a toy like this would automatically make you the coolest dude in the yard. They fought for the right to come to visit you, lined up in line. You could feel like Tom Sawyer, exchanging five minutes with a gameboy for all sorts of goodies like sneakers and other happiness.
And the Lego constructors? They are still on the wave, but then, at the beginning of the XNUMXs, it was an incredibly cool gift! Dolls, again – Barbies or monsters from the respective school are still very popular.
Remember 20 years ago? It was back in the 90s. Then one of the best gifts was a player. Not this miniature box with the coveted bitten apple icon, no. And quite so-so weighty “sandwich” – a CD-player that you could carry with you, hanging it on your belt, so that everyone looked and envied.
Then the heyday of the Tamagotchi era happened. Every second person had an electronic animal with him, which had to be looked after: fed, put to bed, walked and cleaned. And if the “pet” died, it was incredible grief. Well, those who were not lucky and did not get the Tamagotchi looked sadly at their peers who were enthusiastically poking at the buttons.
Are we going further? Let’s remember what happened 25 years ago. 1991, then all these political troubles happened, which in no way contributed to an increase in the standard of living. What were we looking for under the Christmas tree then, remember? The girls rejoiced at the clothes – then leggings, acid-colored elastic skirts, imported shampoos with mysterious inscriptions promising wondrous beauty of hair began to seep into the already former Soviet Union. The boys were happy to receive the sneakers; were ready to wear them in January for everyone to see! I wanted everything. But everything was equally inaccessible.
Then the first Barbies appeared and a lot of fakes for them: not so long-legged, not so graceful faces, hair, again, not at all the same … To have a real, truly foreign doll – how cool it was!
And the players? No, no one had heard of CDs then. Cassette holders. Try now to explain to your child what a cassette is! And then that the players, that cassette tape recorders were just the ultimate dream. They consumed a lot of batteries that we knew how to reanimate: we had to slightly warm up the battery to prolong its life. True, parents often forbade taking this miracle out of the house, which poisoned the joy of owning a little … But we still carried the player to school, hiding it from the hooligans in a briefcase: well, it’s impossible not to brag!
Now it’s hard to believe it, but under the tree one could find … sugar! Yes, regular sugar. Such a simple thing, but it was in short supply. It is now we are disgustedly pushing the sugar bowl aside: I don’t drink, they say, sweet tea and coffee. And then we, not spoiled by confectionery delights, made cakes: a piece of bread had to be spread with butter and sprinkled with sugar. Deliciously delicious! Such a gift survived until summer, when it was time to make jam.
For the sake of fairness, we note: the children did not enjoy sugar. But to dig out in a pile of cotton wool under the tree an electronic toy “Well, wait!”, Or “Hunt” – wow! Remember how we sat for hours, forcing the unfortunate wolf to catch eggs in a basket? Or did they shoot the ducks? For example, I didn’t have my own toy, but now there is an application on my smartphone that imitates that very toy. I catch up with my childhood. However, the time in line at the clinic or in the bank kills perfectly.
Are we going further? I confess that it was 30 years ago, I don’t remember very well. Therefore, I relied on the stories of my mother. It turns out that I was glad to find cubes with letters under the tree. Mom had to take them to Primorye, where we lived then, all the way from Moscow! In Vladivostok, such happiness in the shaggy 80s could not be bought. Pyramids, hula-hoop – such simple things made me very happy. And they were so hard to find! But our moms could. They took cherished gifts to the distant lands to please us, then still kids.
And the candy? Nowadays in supermarkets there is an insane abundance of sweets in bright wrappers. Take your pick – I don’t want to. And then? To put a bag of chocolates under the Christmas tree, the kid had to be sensitive to the wind: not to miss the moment when these sweets were thrown away in the department store, to stand in line (“Imagine, they ran out right behind me!”), And even to be able to do them hide so that curious children’s noses do not reach the gift ahead of time. What happiness was the number that way on January 3, when all the most delicious from the New Year’s bag had already been eaten, to find among the toys on the Christmas tree the previously unnoticed “Bear in the North” somehow miraculously!
And even tangerines were a delicacy that we were sincerely happy with at the age of four or five. It is now possible to create a New Year’s mood for yourself all year round by buying these fruits with orange skin. And then they were a symbol of magic and the most beloved holiday.
Oh, and one more thing is my personal impression. Even from those same shaggy 80s, I carried my love for books. This is the gift that I have always enjoyed. Unless, of course, this is an edition of some series “Charm” with a title like “Furious Princess”. Remember, there were those, with eloquent drawings on the covers, where some incredible handsome man hugs the same incredible beauty. However, it’s a matter of taste. This year, for example, I bought a decent edition “The House in Which…” by Miriam Petrosyan and I am extremely happy about that. Probably, after all, something childish in us remains forever.
What were you happy about? Share your childhood happiness!