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It was probably because every department store placed them on their most obtrusive displays, along with all of those other “basic” gifts, like Isotoner gloves and cheap glassware. Novelty coin banks were extremely common Christmas presents during the ‘80s and ‘90s. I don’t remember if I actually got it from Santa, but I spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s camping out by the tree in that bag, trying to soak up those last bits of String Light Glory before my father threw everything back into the attic. You probably didn’t run out on Christmas morning to brag about your new BraveStarr sleeping bag, but you sure as shit lived in that thing during the week off from school. They were great gifts, even if most kids were loath to admit it. There’s nothing inherently Christmassy about sleeping bags, but I still associate them with this time of year, thanks to the many multi-page spreads in old holiday catalogs. JCPenney called them slumber bags, but I’ve only ever known them as sleeping bags. On the goofier side was that wristwatch, which bordered close to ALF taxidermy. I never had the Talking ALF shown here, but it was essentially his version of Teddy Ruxpin. I can’t think of another gift I wanted more as a kid, and that was just a simple plush doll, competing against the likes of the Nintendo Entertainment System. If you were too young/not alive to catch ALF in his heyday, he was the coolest “person” a kid could name.Ĭase in point: Coleco’s standard ALF doll, which looked like the Talking ALF shown above, was probably the best Christmas present I ever got. These items come from an era when ALF was inarguably The Shit. May the following doodads unlock rusty parts of your brains, too.

I see an action figure I had as a kid, and suddenly I can remember the color of my old bedroom walls. Not just about the toys I grew up loving, but also the stuff surrounding them.

These old catalogs spark so many memories for me. Yeah, I already mined it for another article, but there are like 500 pages in this thing. Let’s walk through the highlights from JCPenney’s 1987 Christmas catalog. Pour some coffee and wrap yourself in a throw blanket, because you’re mine for the next fifteen minutes. More Highlights from the 1987 JCPenney Catalog!