What Christmas present did you get as a child that you'll never forget?

[GunpowderGelatine]

For me it was a cabbage patch doll when everyone was going mad for them in the 80's. My mum swore blind for months that they'd sold out and it was gonna happen for me. I remember unwrapping her and being overjoyed, and my mum having that smug look on her face . 20-odd years later I inadvertently named my DD after the CP doll's middle name nothing ever beat that present! She's still in my attic (the doll. Not my mum)

The dolls house my Dad made for me which was made the right size for my Pippa dolls (and the Pippa dolls themselves). I was 5 I think and it took him months to make in the shed. I still have it and the dolls and they've survived myself and both my daughters playing with them for the last 43 years! My Dad died last year and I always appreciated how many hours he spent that year making me such a perfect present.

I had the toy post office too! Absolutely loved it for years!

Another Cabbage Patch Kid lover here! I was 16 and a CPK was the only thing I wanted for Christmas, despite my mum's insistence that :
a) they were too difficult to find and had sold out everywhere
b) they were too bloody expensive
c) "You're far too old to be playing with dolls!"
After opening all my presents and trying not to look too disappointed, a final package was discovered that they thought might be mine although it had no label on it.
I was ecstatic and my little boy Blake is still very much loved 35 years down the line.

A care bear..... the blue one

Most of my toys were passed on (without my knowledge) and wrecked

Oh that’s too sad. I kept my childhood treasures in an old suitcase under my bed. Unbeknownst to me, at some point after I left home my parents moved the suitcase to the cellar - which was damp.

Years later after I had kids I went to retrieve the toys so they could have them, but when I opened up the suitcase everything had gone green with mould. It was a little bit heartbreaking.

A baby doll and pram, Barbie and a Wuzzel (not all the same year).i always felt so spoiled at Christmas. My parents were ace at it! My mum still buys me socks every year.

I had a doll that looked just like a real baby (soft body, plastic arms/legs/head). I think we called them ‘life like dolls’?! Maybe circa 1985?

And a dolls house :)

Baby Expressions. I wanted baby expressions so so much but it was the toy of the year back when people used to go insane and queue in Hamleys over this years must have toy. I knew I wouldn’t get it as Santa just wouldn’t be able to get it.

On Christmas morning we opened all our presents and no baby expressions, later that morning my dad acted out a phone call from Santa who apparently told him he’d left a couple of bits behind the sofa and there he was! My baby expressions (and whatever dB wanted that year)!
We never got that years must have toy, mainly due to the money and my dad must’ve done a shit Ton of overtime for it.

He actually only went to the big toy shop in the sky last year after DM used him as a teaching tool at work once I got to old for it...broke my heart a little bit at 29y when he finally had to go!

I’ve teared up a bit remembering how happy I was! My mum and dad are ace!

Dolls house (aged about 7)

Bookcase for my bedroom aged 13

1950...we had just moved int a brand new council house money was tight. I was told to ask Santa for surprises that year. I longed for a doll I had seen with lots of outfits. On Christmas morning my two favourite dolls were sitting on the sofa wearing smart net grey coats with scarlet trim. They each had a suitcase (cardboard) full of beautiful little garments. Mum, grandma and Aunty hat knitted and sewn them all in the weeks before Christmas. The coats were from a scrap of old blanket, the knickers fro two of Grandads hankies and the rest just made from scraps.
I was told my dad had spotted the little cases on a market stall for 6d each and that was the total financial spend.
I did have a stocking though. It had a new top and whip, a Happy Families game and some coloured chalks as well as the usual I guess.
I felt the luckiest girl in the world.

I always wanted the Magic Nursery Baby. It had an outfit you would dip in water and would reveal another outfit. It's only now I realise that the original outfit would have been some sort of paper monstrosity and it was just a big standard doll but my god did I long for it. I can still sing the advert

1975 active Sindy doll. I can still remember her smell when I inboxed her.
I was SO happy. We were a poor family and didn't have many toys. My parents had saved for ages to buy her.

A doll that talked and moved it's eyes, you put a tape in the back of her and she told stories, she was called Cricket! I loved that doll! I think there was a boy version of her too.

Mine would have to be my beloved Tiny Tears doll!!
She went everywhere with me and features on most of my childhood photographs.I use dto push her along in a red and white striped buggy.

They now have a Tiny Tears identical to the one I had as a child sitting in pride of place on display in the local museum under the heading "Toys from Bygone days"!!!!
Yes I feel ancient, but happy memories!!

My furby the year they came out. I proudly took it to my grandparents and played with it the whole day. I still have it in the loft. I’ve just given my daughter some of my little ponies. She calls them pons!

A bar or dream house with working lift 😁

A book on napkin folding when I was about 9. I’ll never forget that!!

Thegreylady big lump in my throat reading that. How absolutely lovely, all those little clothes made with love. Such a nice memory.

One of my favourite ever presents was Fashion Wheel. You turned the circles to make different outfits and did a brass rubbing type thing to transfer it to paper so you could colour it in. I was obsessed and spent the whole week designing lots of outfits. Some of them I cut out and proudly presented to my dad. He died in November and while going through some of his things I found my Fashion Wheel designs inside one of his diaries with the date written on the back - Christmas 1989.

My mum made me some cracking things.

A miniature fruit and veg stall, painted in red, green, white Nd gold (like. Victorian shop front) with little individual fruits and vegetables made from clay and painted and varnished.

Or a replica of the costume Princess in Battle of the Planets (G-Force) wore.

One Christmas Eve, my aunt and uncle drove down from 200 miles away, left a Paddington Bear (complete with suitcase and marmalade sandwiches, plus “Please look after this Bear” tag round his neck) on the doorstep, rang the bell and ran away. I was three and really thought Paddington had come to stay. They stayed the night in a hotel Nd ppered the next morning. I didn’t put two and two together til I was older.

When I was about seven, same auntie and uncle, told me to take the rickety stairs up to their attic. Halfway up the stairs, there was Kermit. A lady at my auntie’s work made Muppet replicas.

I’m crying now, because this has brought back such happy memories. My mum and aunty are both gone now, but they both loved me so much. Thank you.

A record player and Black Beauty Album to go with it.
I loved that Album.

Two things come to mind.
A My Little Pony house thing. Can't remember which one it was, but given my parents were very anti plastic tat and actually spending money on things I was very surprised! I was even bought another pony to go with it. Played with that for aaaaages.
The other one is actually a birthday present.
Technic lego.
I think it was a pretty new thing at the time. I remember the TV ads and just being enthralled by it. From then on, any birthday questions were "TECHNIC LEGO!" and absolutely nothing else.
They actually bloody listened to me! Two decent sized sets of the stuff, and it was totally worth it. I built everything in the instruction books and more.
The best bit was the look on my brothers face though. He looked like he'd been slapped and he then said "You can't have that, you're a GIRL!"
Asshole. He was so jealous.

A BMX!

All of my friends had one for their birthdays throughout the year and they'd let me tag along to the BMX track and sometimes I'd get a go but I'd have loved one of my own.

I'm not sure how old I was but I was old enough to understand my parents weren't wealthy and that Christmas was on their £ not anyone else's so I didn't even bother asking for a BMX.

Comes to Christmas morning and there's the usual little stack of presents each for us in co-ordinating wrapping paper. My stack was way smaller than my younger siblings, but I smiled gratefully and swallowed my disappointment. Before I could start opening my presents my mother said "Sumitos, I've only just sat down and forgotten to bring in the rubbish bag for the paper. Can you go get it from the kitchen for me please so we don't lose any bits of toys in the wrapping paper?"

So I got up, walked into the kitchen and there right in front of me was a brand new BMX with a ribbon and my name on it. I turned round to run back into the living room and my parents were there smiling at my reaction.

I have no idea how they afforded it but I'll never forget that moment...but I did forget to get the rubbish bag for all the paper!

Really random but one of the only presents I remember is a glow in the dark yo-yo. I must have been 11.

@CigarsofthePharoahs funnily enough I came on to post this Lego Technic rally buggy

Years later my parents told me that there had been a mix up between my and my brother’s gifts from our Aunt and Uncle. When they saw how excited I was they decided to keep silent. The really funny thing is that no one remembers what my brother opened instead!

A chess set from my Granddad, I was year 3 and I'd joined the chess club at school that term and been excitedly telling him all about it as we learned the rules and how we were starting a tournament in January, so he bought me my own set and spent boxing day teaching me to play properly. Granddad had the patience of a saint and we sat and played it for ages.