In Praise of Favorite Christmas Toys of the Past
Michalis 'BIG Mike' Kotzakolios


Defined Tag: Christmas Toys.

In these days of high tech toys that the kids seem to understand better than the adults, it is sometimes good to revisit the Christmas toys of years past, and remember how much fun it was to receive those special gifts. Here's a few of the Christmas toys that brought smiles to millions of kids in decades gone by.

For many of us, the Christmas we received our first bicycle will forever live on in our memories. Imagine the excitement as we jumped form our beds and ran to our parent's bedroom, urging them to get up so we could all go see what wonders Santa Claus had brought during the night. With whoops and cheers, we ran to the tree, only to find that shiny red new Western Flyer bike that we had looked at with such longing every time we passed the store. Here was something more than just another Christmas toy. A real bike symbolized a rite of passage, indicating we were moving from being just a little kid to the status of being a full-grown boy or girl. That special Christmas toy began a series of adventures as we took our new bike for its first official spin, and would be the gift we would use almost every day for many years to come.

For the little girls, the first grown up doll was a really big deal. Her at last was a Christmas toy that would allow the little girl to feel the first stirrings of the woman she would become, as she used the doll to focus her imagination on what big people did --getting a job, getting married, and having a family. Little girls began to develop their sense of fashion, even as they began to dream of what they would choose to become once they were all grown up, just like their doll. Indeed, this Christmas toy, like the bike, launched many adventures that helped to bridge the gap between being a child and being an adult.

For the child with an inquisitive mind, Christmas toys such as chemistry sets or kits to build dinosaurs were once a favorite. Never mind the mess that the glue made, or the smells that the chemical combinations sometimes produced; Christmas toys of these kind helped to help the child embrace knowledge and may even point the way toward a career.

The 1950's and 1960's were a time when great strides were being made in the race to outer space. Kids readily clamored for, and received, model rockets and all sorts of Christmas toys that were geared toward understanding and exploring the universe. Whether the Christmas toy was a scale model of a rocket already developed or a copy of a spaceship similar to those seen in the movies or on television, budding space enthusiasts had the chance to imagine themselves as part of the great new frontier.

By today's standards, many of our favorite Christmas toys from years past seem simplistic, almost boring. Yet, they inspired millions of kids to reach for a future where they could be anything and go anywhere, if they just wanted it badly enough

And you now what? A bike is still a pretty good idea.

BIG Mike is a well known author, developer and Adsense expert as well as the owner of Niche Maniacs - a unique Adsense Marketing System designed to build long-term passive income streams from Adsense, Amazon, YPN, Chitika and other PPC services.