Christmas in the 1970s

Get out your bellbottoms and fluff up your Afro, we are heading down Christmas memory lane in the 1970s! Most people don’t really remember most of the gifts they received as children or even as adults for that matter, but they do remember good times spent with family or friends and it is memories and making memories that are the joys of the season. Lots of folks remember the blizzards or big snows in the South. We were snowed in at home in Ohio in 1978 and Macon got 16.5 inches of snow in 1973.

I sure did enjoy the 70s as a child. Some of the Christmas songs that came out in the 1970s were Merry Christmas Darling by the Carpenters, Step into Christmas by Elton John and Feliz Navidad by Jose Feliciano just to name a few.  

As kids in the 1970s we spent hours hours pouring through the toy sections of the Sears, J.C Penney and Montgomery Ward catalogs. Sears didn’t call it the “wish book” for nothing! The pet rock fad was very popular, whoever invented that was a genius!  Other toys introduced in the 1970s were Weebles, Speak and Spell, Star Wars in 1977, Connect Four, Hungry Hungry Hippos and Stretch Armstrong. Remember him?  

Want to freak out the young kids? Pull up Youtube and show them people playing “Pong,” the hot new video game that was all the rage in 1972 and gave birth to the incredible graphic video games we have now. I remember playing “Pong” on a black and white TV with my sister. I guess you could say folks were easily entertained back then, it was a simpler time for sure! Atari created pong and the techology became better throughout the decade. My favorite Atari games were “Frogger” and “Berzerk.”  Of course “Pac-Man” was a winner too. I can still hear the sound of them eating the the dots and the sounds made when the ghosts came out! You are thinking of it now too!

I still have my Chrissy doll with the lovely red hair that would “grow longer or shorter” if you turned the dial on her back. The “Malibu” Barbie appeared in the 70s also. Didn’t she have a lovely tan? The humble Nerf ball appeared in the 1970s. It was just a small soft orange ball that came with a small basketball goal with suction cups. Nerf couldn’t hurt your sibling when you threw it at their head or hurt the house when you banked it off the walls or doors. Now we have nerf guns and other items.  

Well, I hope you enjoyed this brief general trip down memory lane. Check out your favorite search engine for the popular toys of your childhood or certain years and you will surely find a treasure trove of information and good memories! Happy Collecting!

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