Sears Wishbook

What is my biggest memory of Christmas as a young child? The Sears Christmas Wishbook of course. When the Wishbook showed up on your doorstep some time in early October, it was time to get excited about Christmas! I can remember spending countless hours sitting with the Wishbok and a stack of various coloured pens to mark the toys I wanted, really wanted, and had to have! By the time Christmas day rolled around, at least half the toys in the toy section had some sort of mark beside them, with many having multiple marks, cross outs, new marks, and special notes to whoever might be looking at this before the big day!

I haven't seen a Sears Wishbook for a few years now and had almost forgotten about it until a Sears Wishbook CD showed up at our house this year. It got me to thinking about all the fun I used to have as a child sitting with the catalog for hours ogling all the toys! unfortuently with this new format, kids today won't be able to sit in their rooms, pens in hand, making marks on all the stuff that catches their eye.
I still have all of our old Wishbooks, and still get a kick out of flipping though them and seeing all the marks I made in them, not to mention seeing all the great old toys that I still have fun ogling today!
For those of you who would like to relive the magic of flipping though an old Wishbook, you can check out this great Sears Wishbook 1979 - photoset on Flickr. Have fun, and Merry Christmas!

A Very Retro Merry Christmas

Hello and Merry Christmas... Yes you heard me, Merry Christmas! I don't know about you but the whole politically correct/non offensive Christmas thing has spun out of control. If you want a good laugh, check out the song "Kung Pao Buckaroo Holiday (Featuring The Kung Pao Buckaroos)" by Brad Paisley (I got my copy at the iTunes Music store online) in which they bleep the word Christmas and any other word that could be considered offensive - of course by the end of the song, its just one long beeeep!

Anyway, while checking out all of my favorite blogs, including the Secret Fun Spot Blog, which has a great "The Twelve Years of Christmas" photo run, I have seen lots of old Christmas morning photos, which got me curious to dig up some of my own.
Here are 3 Christmas day photos I found. The first one is Christmas day '67. The other two did not have dates on them, so I had to make an educated guess as to the years. I am going to say that the second photo is Christmas morning 1972 and the third photo is 1978.

Not much I can say about this photo except, wow, what a neat looking race set!
Here are a few great things about this photo: 1) the orange and blue fuzzy slippers I am wearing, 2) the great tractor and wagon I received, 3) the even greater wind up plane I received, 4) the fake present on the tree was my 'costume' in the school Christmas play, 5) the really cool old black and white TV with the jumbo knobs, at the right edge of the photo.
A few things about this photo: 1) The same Christmas tree as the last photo (the same tree we had until we stopped putting up a tree, 2) The brand new color TV with space age remote control, 3) you won't see it in the photo, but the carpet I am sitting on is green 2 inch shag carpeting, 4) the magazine rack on the left hand side of the photo is stocked full of old Sears Christmas catalogs!

O yeah... and one last thing... Merry Christmas!

Wranglers Midnight Madness

What were you doing at 11:59 pm Monday night (Dec 18)? I am enjoying my 4th annual Las Vegas Wranglers Midnight Madness hockey game via the net! Isn't the internet a wondrous thing? It's been marked on my iCal for months now, ever since the Wranglers released their 2006/07 schedule back in August. I stumbled upon the Midnight Madness game 4 years ago, and have looked forward to it each year since. Unfortunately for me, the way things work this year, I don't start my Christmas vacation until next week, so unlike the previous 3 years where I didn't have to work the next day after the Midnight Madness games, this time, I have to go to work the next day, and I don't expect this game to be over until some time around 3 am.
But I wouldn't miss it!... A woman bared her breasts on the big screen at the Wranglers' Midnight Holiday Roundup two years ago and tribute band "Mini Kiss" stole the show at last season's game. About the only thing one can count on at this unique promotion is that the game will go into overtime or a shootout, as the first three midnight games have at the Orleans Arena. We'll have to wait to see how the one turns out in a few hours.
Las Vegas president Billy Johnson came up with the idea to become the first pro sports team to play a midnight game. "I went to school at the University of Kentucky back when it was one of the first schools to do 'Midnight Madness' for the basketball program and it's the first time I've had an opportunity to be in a market to do something like that," he said. "It's definitely a top-five promotion for us, it's so unique. The funny thing about promotions in minor league sports is people like to take ownership of it."
Johnson said the Wranglers have averaged close to 5,000 fans per midnight game.
"I think it's a neat idea. It's something unique to our organization," he said. "We don't mind playing them. The guys get a nice Christmas break after them. It's always the last game before Christmas. And it's something to talk about with your kids or wife someday, that you played a midnight game until three in the morning in Las Vegas.
Here is a great sound bite from last years game, which occurred some time in the third period - around 2:30 am. The game announcer used one of my favorite hockey phrases after a goal... "He put it up where Grandma keeps the cookies", only, he was so tired that it didn't exactly come out as planned. It had me laughing for the next few minutes!