Christmas Presents of the Eighties

~ fancypaperblog

Top Christmas Presents of the Eighties from the Viewpoint of a Girl. Who remembers Christmas morning with one of these amazing gifts?

1. A Secret Keyper. These were magical animals with a secret hideyhole for your treasures.  Mine was a purple unicorn and I loved it.il_570xn-774700298_9ysu

2. A Petite 990. Or the baby sister of it-Petite 660. We all imagined typing our future novels and correspondence forever on one of these fun products. The advert too- Working 9-5 Dolly Parton style time.  Top class! Mine worked for about ten minutes though. Bit of a disappointment.

3. A Casio Keyboard. We all went bonkers for one of these at some point. Hours of Morning Has Broken or When the Saints Come Marching in with those fun backing track keys were a joy to our parents.

4. A Care Bear. They lived on clouds and loved you forever.71zlwibcurl-_sy355_

5. My Little Pony. Tiny colourful clothes wearing horsies. Mine had leg warmers!6e167d9d3528259dc6f210ae7edc24c2

6. Atari. The coolest thing imaginable….Until. ..

7. Commodore C-64. Oh wow. The world of Dizzy. Paperboy. BubbleBobble. Hours of brain burning staring. Levels. Tape loading. Joysticks.

8. Perfection. The game with all the shapes that popped up in your face and gave you a little fright. The small pieces abundant, therefore more dangerous, predecessor of Buckaroo.

9. Go For Broke. The board game where you worked hard to lose all your money. Probably a bad lesson to learn!

10. Tiny Tears. I never got one but I knew all about her. A most coveted baby doll.

11. Teddy Ruxpin. He TALKED to you. For real.

12. Lego. The big ship. Most people didn’t get that one. Big cost. Therefore the castle with soldiers and pirates was just as amazing.

The Surprise: An annual. Bunty, Mandy, Judy, Beano, Dandy or Beezer. The best of literature. No joke.

Curly Wurly from the selection box and you were away with it.

Happy Christmas everyone!bitmoji-20161228060353

44 thoughts on “Christmas Presents of the Eighties”

  1. Ah we had a Casio keyboard with all the backing tracks! So cringe!! And also plenty and plenty of Lego…in fact we still have the Lego!! Thanks so much for linking up with #DreamTeam and Happy New Year!

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  5. Did you see that vintage news report last week about the year Cabbage Patch released? It’s on FB somewhere. I was born in ’81 and thought Teddy Ruxpin was the bee’s knees. Also Lite Brite. And Speak n Spell. Between this and Hayley’s music post, time-warp.

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  7. I love these retro posts. I go back even further than the 80s but I remember my nieces getting some of these as presents, especially the Care Bear and My Little Pony. They also had the Sylvanian family stuff too. 🙂

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  8. Great list Orla! Dizzy was my absolute favourite, I spent many a frustrating hour on my Amstrad – and that was just waiting for the bloody things to load! You forgot the holy grail of Christmas presents though…the Mr Frosty 🙂

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  13. i never got a teddy ruxpin either.,,now tempted to look at amazon.. i had my little pony, was not allowed a care bear, but have them now.. (my daughter now has care bears and my little pony) frustration was good.. we had an atari and a spectrum – bomb jack and paper boy were my favourites.. great post.. so many memories.

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      1. You are so good to get them on ebay! I wonder what happened to mine. I guess my mum probably gave them away to charity shops. Maybe they found their way to your daughters!

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  16. I had a Tiny Tears — in the 50s. This was really fun to read. I remember those toys though, of course, I was pretty much over toys by then. 😉 My niece had My Little Ponies and I think she thought they were real. What a sweet post.

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  18. I was a 60’s -70’s child, though if I had been an 80’s one that little pony would have been well dressed as I made all my own dolls clothes until I was older enough to make my clothes for myself!! I loved designing new outfits. Fun post, Orla! Have a good one 🙂

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  20. I was a stroppy teenager in the 80’s Orla so I don’t remember most of these toys. However I did have Tiny Tears. My parents searched everywhere for her and couldn’t get her. No on-line shopping back then. You shopped as far as you could travel. Mam got it on the 28th Dec in the end, so they gave it to me for my birthday on the 29th. I loved her! (the doll and my mam) Such lovely memories.
    I think we had perfection. (or maybe it was a friend) My Little Miss Seven has My Little Ponies.They’ll go on FOREVER!! Lovely post Orla.

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