Best Xmas presents of your youth...

[weeksy]

OK, so younger days were different to nowdays as we all know and Xmas was SPECIAL...

But what present gave you the most hours of fun.

Mine has to have been the great and glorious Subbuteo !


Not even really sure why... but it just brought so much fun, it helped of course that the kit at the time was red and blue... but i'll never forget getting the Celtic kit which was AWESOME !!!! Used to go to Lewis's (John Lewis now) and they'd have team after team on the shelves... the Celtic on though was special... as was even getting the orange winter balls....

[gremlin]

Bad news: it comes with VAR these days.


I remember Race 'n' Chase. Basically a Scalextric rip off, but had a built-in ramp which, in the adverts, the cars skillfully jumped and landed. In reality, they ended up in the cheap, brown and orange* lounge carpet. It also had a U-turn function, which worked maybe 10% of the time. Usually the cars just got stuck across track.

https://nostalgiacentral.com/pop-cultur ... ace-chase/

*My mum really embraced 70's (lack of) style.

[KungFooBob]

Millennium Falcon, obviously.

[MingtheMerciless]

Lego.

[Cousin Jack]

A new pushbike. A second hand BSA Tour of Britain bike with 8 gears and drop bars. I had a bike, and old heavy thing but I really really wanted a new bike. We had moved house just before Xmas and my Dad took me to see this one and I was over the moon. I remember my Dad apologising for not being able to afford a new one, but for me it was the best Xmas present ever.

[Count Steer]

A brand new bicycle.

(It was my first).

[Trinity765]

Anna and Happytime.

Anna started dating my twin brother's Action Man and was thrilled when he picked her up in his Jeep.... until my brother found out

[Taipan]

[Buckaroo]

Mechano and the original Lego, with proper tiles and windows and the mighty Mamod steam engine.

Being one of five boys we had tons of the stuff. Sadly though, my parents managed to get rid of it and we've got none of it left. No idea where it went.

[gremlin]

I used to have many an Action Man as a kid and thought they were the coolest thing, but now when I look at him I just hear Village People going around in my head...

We were skint as kids and I wanted an Action Man tent. My mum, being tight as I am now, went into work and made me one out of scrap material she found laying around (it was a factory making fabric stuff, like flags, tents etc.) and made me a one. In fairness, it was fucking ace.

[Rockburner]

I'm still eyeing the occasional potential replacements that pop up on ebay.....

[Rockburner]

Mechano and the original Lego, with proper tiles and windows and the mighty Mamod steam engine.

Being one of five boys we had tons of the stuff. Sadly though, my parents managed to get rid of it and we've got none of it left. No idea where it went.

I reemmber getting the Mamod Rolls.... I think it's still tucked away in my Dad's workshop somewhere... we never did get it running properly (ie at all!)

[Silly Car]

A few spring to mind, around the time I worked out I could ‘boost’ the money spent by asking the ‘rents to combine Christmas and birthday (early Jan) gifts:

Lego Technics car with ‘working engine’ - spent hours building that with my dad, or more correctly hours building it for him to take apart and put together correctly

Ghetto blaster with twin tape decks, purely to copy ZX Spectrum games, I ended up blowing up the speakers which were replaced by Blaupunkt car speakers

A racer pushbike - didn’t think I was getting it as we were spending Christmas at an aunt and uncle’s place in Essex rather than at home in Norfolk, my sneaky ‘rents had asked them to buy and wrap it and it lay hidden in a bedroom until all other gifts for everyone else had been unwrapped.

Others of note:

Flight deck - it always seemed to take longer setting it up and getting the tension right on the nylon cord than flying the plane
Crossfire - that was great until my cousin and I weaponised the ball bearing guns by firing them at each other / our sisters…

[ajlog]

Having a birthday a week after Christmas meant that I always got a 'Big' present for Christmas to cover both so was really lucky as a kid.

Some of the most memorable ones were:

Raleigh Winner racer, with the padded foam grips, in about 1984/5 loved that, in an era of BMXs it was perfect for me as we lived a few miles away from most of my school friends and it was my first experience of independence and exploration on 2 wheels.

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A few years earlier I got a racing set called TCR (Total Control Racing) my dad being a big kid himself got us this over the standard Scalextric as it had real overtaking and a couple of slower self driving 'jam' cars that needed to be encountered during a race.

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Probably the best was a Tamiya Sand Rover, again Dad the big kid must have had great fun in the nights up to Christmas building it up from the kit and painting it ready for the big day.

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Even now in his 70's he loves nothing more than getting some Technical Lego for Christmas, we got him this a couple of years ago:

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However there is only 1 present that is still in use to this day. One year there was a present wrapped up that when I saw it Christmas morning I was convinced was a snooker table, from the size and shape it was definitely a 4 or 5ft snooker table.
Opening the wrapping revealed a painting of a Hawker Hurricane, and today it still hangs on my eldest sons bedroom wall.

Hurricane.jpg (69.11 KiB) Viewed 487 times

[Dodgy69]

My first brand new pushbike. A blue Raleigh arena with those short silver mudguards. There was snow everywhere, brilliant fun, maybe 82.

[Dodgy69]

Google pic..

[gremlin]

"I were right about that saddle, though".

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

Probably a talking Action Man when I was about 5, it was when we lived in the caravan so before I was 7.

[ChrisW]

I remember Race 'n' Chase.

I got that for Christmas 1979, if I remember right - still have the Corvette from it…

[derek badger]

A Dukla Prague Away Kit. IYKYK.