The most remembered present you received as a child

[ahunf]

Over 30 years ago my aunt. (Who died a couple of years later age 42) bought me and my siblings a child size porcelain mug. They each had a cartoon drawing on the front and a small corresponding teddy inside. So mine said "I'm a little Angel" and had an Angel doll. The other two said Vampire and Monkey. They all fit our personalities too. I was very quiet.

My dd's would definitely not appreciate them as much as I did however I've looked and cannot see anything similar. I'd love to see a photo of one again.

What's your story?

A Heathcliff cat tent which had all my other presents inside it. Loved that tent.

I also got a cabbage patch kid when I was 18. My parents couldn't afford one when I was little and that year they were financially stable, so bought me and my siblings all a toy that we had wanted as a child but couldn't afford.

Crossroads video. I was a massive Britney Spears fan

Tilda77
My aunt bought me a glo-worm when I was about 4 or 5.

oh I loved my glo worm too, weren’t they amazing!!!

A harmonica

A lady Lovelilocks doll (I can’t remember why!!!!)

doll make up head (how I ruined that poor doll’s hair!!)

etch a sketch and sprirograph (which I now give for presents to nieces and nephews- to mixed reactions!!)
Thank you for this thread ( would like to nominate for classics!!)

ps the poster with the tangerine- tell me you got a tambourine!!

My mum had a frIend who worked in a factory that made dolls (I know, the stuff of dreams) and every year when were were very young a big parcel with loads of foreign stamps would arrive before Christmas. My god, the excitement 😂😂
It would disappear and we would be given the dolls/toys on Christmas Day.
The one that stands out was a play toiletry set in a little case that zipped up. It had bottles of lovely smelling soaps/shampoos and was just so different and magical! Back then it was unusual to see toys made in other countries so the dolls etc always seemed so exotic and unique.

@mam0918 Aww, your Space hopper ☹️ uncles like that suck. They think they’re being clever and funny, but they’re acting like a complete dick!

A train set with trains that moved - a bit like the one in the image attached. I hadn't asked for one and I LOVED it (age 4 I think). I told everyone who would listen that I hadn't even asked for it but Father Christmas brought it and it was amazing!

My dad bought one for my two year old and he loves it too.

Does anyone else think the toys now are just not the same as they were back then or is because we appreciated things so much more. I remember carrying a small box of barbies and clothes with me everywhere and I played for hours and never got bored. Yet kids these days are always bored and the toys just don’t seem the same as they did then, a lot are so cheaply made now and so overpriced

A toy kitchen that my dad made himself. It wasn't fancy. Fairly basic wooden (chipboard?) box painted white that opened for the oven. He might actually have repurposed a packing crate for it. It had a coffee lid as the handle. Then painted on hob, with the black rings. I remember seeing it through the frosted glass door to the Christmas tree and wondering what it was as it wasn't wrapped.

I'm not sure how much I used it as an oven. But I soon realised because it was just a big box, if I put it on the side I could sit in it and it could be ANYTHING. So much more potential than a kitchen from a shop! I remember pretending it was an airplane a lot, because the door was a wing.

My wonderful, talented grandad made me a wooden dolls house - I desperately wanted one but they were very expensive. It was beautifully decorated, carpeted with offcuts, he made all furniture, a little rocking horse and a dressing table using a compact mirror. I loved it so much. It was sadly damaged beyond repair a couple of years ago after a leak.

This 🥰

The one that vividly stands out in my mind is a soft toy giraffe.

My mum was working overnight in a care home, I remember my dad waking me up early when it was still dark and me taking my stocking in the car to go and collect her from work. And the top of the stocking was a giraffe with a really floppy neck, I was cuddling my stocking & him, i remember being so excited to show my mum. I dont remember anything else from that Christmas or what else was in the stocking. I must have been quite young at the time too.

Even now with my children Santa always leaves a cuddly toy just poking out of the top of the stocking unwrapped!

A dolls crib and high chair mum had got second hand and repainted. We had just moved in with my Nan after losing our house after mum and dad split and also losing my grandad but somehow she managed to make it the most magical Christmas and it's always the one that has stuck in my mind.

For my 11th birthday I had some really grown up presents, some perfume in a little bag and in the morning my mum had given me some really pretty bras. My first. You would probably call them bralets these days. She knew I wouldn’t want to open them in front of my Dad.
I just remember feeling so lovely and grown-up.

When I was 10 I got my own black and white tv for my room and a beautiful gold crucifix, I remember it hanging in the tree in a jewellery bag. Most Christmas’s I didn’t get things I wanted which is why I think I remember this so much. It was also the last Christmas before things got bad financially (lost home and made homeless) the following few Christmas’s there were no presents.

I got a Pound puppy back in the 80's. woke up at 4am and it was in my sack unwrapped so I got it out to cuddle and went back to sleep. I also got a glow worm, but one of the mini ones and loved that too.

OMG I had that Rooster alarm clock, I called her Henrietta and it was the noisiest bloody alarm clock! Family members used to borrow it before they went on holiday so they could get up early for flight 😂

An easy bake oven... I remember telling my mum for months I wanted one, Santa came up good and that thing never left my sight for about 6 months... we even had to order the extra batter mix for it.. 😜

A bike and Babytalk doll.

A typewriter and a desk.

My Dad made me a dolls house that was a replica of our house.

I well remember what dds (young teens) were once given by an uncle who rarely saw them and had hardly ever given them anything for Christmas.

Two x crisp new £50 notes each! And this would have been in the early/mid 90s. Talk about ecstasy!

Cabbage Patch Doll. I loved her so much.

Such a lovely thread!! I’d totally forgotten about my glo worm and I just remembered my much loved Secret Keeper snail!!

My DCs would love the Pound Puppy with babies.

Wish they’d release these toys again 🥰

My dolls house.
I used to spend hours playing with it, sometimes it was a hospital, sometimes a school and sometimes just a house, or a commune, even before I learned the word.
I made chests of drawers out of matchboxes and tables out of cotton reels with fairy cake pleated cases as tablecloths. DF made me some furniture, along with the bought furniture that we found in Woolies or wherever.
DM sewed some curtains and decorated it with wallpaper samples, and I had a ragbag collection of dolls house sized dolls, all of slightly different scales.
Happy days.
It's probably why I have a huge collection of dolls houses now, as a adult.

Sylvanian family house and my dad spending xmas day "wallpapering" it 😂
Saw the modern sylvanian family stuff in the shops recently and thought it seemed so cheap and plasticky.

My other favourite present was a pound puppy and a polly pocket.