It’s just before Thanksgiving, 1972. I’m lying on the living room rug, propped up on my elbows, sunlight streaming through the window. My brother is next to me; we’re seven and nine, and we are psyched. Open on the floor in front of us is the Sears Christmas catalog, and mom says it’s time to make our Christmas lists.
I remember this particular year because Winnie the Pooh was on the cover, but other than that it’s not a distinctive memory as much as a general one of flipping through page after page of Christmas wonder. Inside these catalogs is everything that anyone could want: telescopes, snowsuits, dress-up costumes, pipes and lighters, sewing kits, a dishwasher, Craftsman tools, coats of arms, bar accessories, bedding and sleeping bags, TVs and radios, Christmas decorations, candy and fruitcake, jewelry and wrapping paper, encyclopedias and sleds. Hockey nets, tennis rackets and ice skates! Oh my.
Then there are the toys: page after page of dolls, Hot Wheels, tabletop hockey, board games, art sets, train sets, microscopes, bicycles, books and guitars, ViewMasters, and everything made by Mattel. It’s every kid’s nirvana.
We turn the pages slowly, and when we find something we like we circle it and fold over the top corner of the page. It takes hours to go through everything; we check and recheck the dog-eared pages, crossing out what we don’t absolutely want (we don’t want to be greedy) and keeping what we truly covet. We write down our selections and the corresponding page numbers in our very best printing on a piece of paper titled Christmas Lists and give it to our mother to mail to Santa. Then we wait for Christmas morning, when we find out if Santa shops the Sears catalog too.
These days, I miss those memories when I read an email from a family member with an Amazon link, but if Sears is adapting then I think I should too.
In 2010, Sears published its Christmas Wish Book online for the first time then promptly discontinued it a year later. The company brought it back in print and digital form in 2017 and published it again this year, despite filing for bankruptcy. Sears hasn’t yet announced its catalog plans for 2019.
In the meantime, a 1972 Sears Wish Book will set you back about $35 on ebay; for page views, www.wishbookweb.com archives hundreds of catalogs from Sears, JC Penney, and other retailers, for you to take your own stroll down memory lane.