My brother and I would share "The Wish Book" ..the special catalogue that came out in the Fall, it was filled with toys and games and everything imaginable for Christmas. We would write our names by the things we wanted. Before you wrote your name by an item, you had to spend hours looking through the book and reading all the descriptions. I can remember telling my brother to write neatly and not scrawl his name all over everything.. Our "Wish Book" would end up without a front or back cover and all the pages would be dogeared. We kept them from one year to the next, they were stored in the front room closet, stacked neatly in the corner with all of the other catalogues..Sears, Pennys, Montgomery Wards and Spiegel regular editions .. none of which got nearly the attention that the Wish Book did..I believe that the wish book we got every Fall was from Sears. In later years we may have gotten one from Pennys too.. but by then we had another brother and a sister who we had to share with. There just were never quite enough wish books to go around. The were also lots of wishes that were made..it would have been impossible to make all those wishes come true.
I wonder what children today would do with a wish book..:)
Oh yes, I don't remember doing that as a child, but our girls did. Circled in big marker and their name by it. Pages and pages! What fun that was. Of course I'd sit for hours and wish for things too. I can still look at magazines for hours!
ReplyDeleteWhat a fun memory. I spent hours pouring through those wish books too. I must have circled about every item in them. I wonder if my mother ever even looked what I wanted. I think giving me the books was just a ploy to keep me occupied. It was fun regardless.
ReplyDeleteI remember when we lived in Puerto Rico we did our school shopping out of a catalog. It was almost like a wish book. One dress was so captivating in the picture I couldn't wait for it to arrive. Although not as wonderful as the picture, it was one of my favorites for years. Wish books are a wonderful idea!
ReplyDeleteI didn't remember that there were special catalogs labeled Wish Books; I just thought that's what we called all catalogs. These days, I get a dozen small catalogs every day for a couple of months before Christmas...clothes, garden stuff, toys, food gifts, Brookstone and other specialties, etc. I still love looking through them, although I don't buy nearly so much as I once did.
ReplyDeleteI remember the Sears Wish Book only back then it was Simpson Sears. We wore that out as kids.
ReplyDeleteI remember my folks calling catalogs "Wish Books." Did yours call Montgomery Wards- Monkey Wards?
ReplyDeleteSears was the big catalog we received each year and I would just study those pages before making my selections! Fun memories.
ReplyDeleteWonderful memory and now you can relive that happiness.
ReplyDeleteLove your winter collage.
ReplyDeleteI have not thought about wish books in years! But oh do I remember them! Thanks for the walk down memory lane. It was fun.
ReplyDeleteThe Duchess
This tradition is alive and well in Sweden! The Christmas catalogues arrive in October and then you can use them to write down in great details everything you want from the catalogue. This is your 'wish list', which you then give to your parents to send off to Santa!
ReplyDeleteOh, I remember them too! It was always such fun to page through the colorful toys, dolls, and even the camping equipment and kitchen stuff! Really nice walk down memory lane, as Emma Rose said.
ReplyDeleteWe used the "Monkey" Wards catalog!
ReplyDeleteLinda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com/
I am still catching up, missed you.
ReplyDeleteWe used to get a Sears Wish book every Christmas, that was a fun time. Now I guess it is just flyers...
Jen