What did you want for a christmas gift as a child?

I don’t remember many Christmas is or the gifts I got. were were not well off often we just got what we needed wrapped in the funny pages for Christmas maybe one big toy and with three girl who had birthdays in November we had combination Birthday Christmas gifts on several occasions. I don though remember on particular gift.

I have always been a girl with a passion for electronic toys. In the late 1970s or very early 1980s I wanted a Merlin electronic game. It’s red plastic hand held electronic goodness was shaped like a large telephone hand set. It even had buttons like a telephone. These round buttons unlike a telephone of the day were recessed into the hand set in square holes the were not like the buttons that many were used to the lit up red when presses or at other times sometimes flashing sometimes solid. the red light was ringed with a grey doughnut shaped frame reminiscent of the white hole protecters that keep paper from pulling out three ring binders. The top “ear piece” was trapezoidal in shape as was the “mouth piece”. The top housed the speaker that played the tones that were created as you played the games. The bottom had four button that were game settings.

Several of my friend had the game and we would play it on the bus, but I wanted my own.  I already was a fan of arcade games and being a kid who had little pocket money and little occasion to go to places that had them I felt I needed a game of my own. I hinted and begged and talked about it constantly. My early December Birthday came and went. I got a Dungeon and Dragon boxed set so I figured that I would not get a Merlin for Christmas. How could I be that lucky. So in the few remaining weeks I played with my friends games and dreamt of having my own.

Christmas morning was reminiscent of the scene from “A Christmas Story” the not so pretty hand made gift (mom made) underwear and socks  books from Dad and Money from the grandparents. Not enough for a Merlin. I thought about ways to get money to get the game when My dad in what has become his classic fashion produces 4 more gifts one for each of us girl and one for my mom.
My brick shaped gift was heavy and I could hardly contain my anxiety. Could it be it was the right shape but I could not imagine My dad spending that kind of money on a toy for me.

To this day I have no clue what anyone else got. It was the shiny red Merlin dad had even opened it up ind put batteries in it.

Looking back on it from 2009 it was very simple but required a bit more human memory power than you average electronic game now. You had to know what the games were or carry the instruction book with you. It did have a list on the back but no instruction of how to play them. It has six games in it and all could be played on its 11 light up buttons very simple games. I loved them all. It was the best gift ever.