December 21, 2015

No Batteries Required

There are those who do and those who don't; tinsel, that is.  I've wavered from year to year, personally.  The other night I was looking back at pictures of Christmases long ago spent at Grandma's house on the farm, and I noticed sparkly, shining strands of tinsel strewn from the tip top to the bottom of the tree.  (And this was genuine aluminum tinsel, mind you, not the plastic static-cling sort you find today).  My mother used to string our tree with tinsel and gather it up at the end of the season to be used the next year.

Staring back from the black and white snap shot with the white scalloped edge framing the picture were my sisters and me posed in front of the tree so many years ago, bright smiles plastered on our faces.  The two older girls were in their customary matching dresses - that year hand made out of green corduroy material - me, I had on a red velvet dress with white tulle' skirt.

We made a truly colorful ensemble and even though it was a black and white photo, somehow the hues colorfully emanate from the paper for me.  The colors that I see blend into a delightfully festive feast for the eyes, and I imagine they were enhanced by the dangling, reflective tinsel on the tree behind us.

Back them, quite a few years more than I care to admit, the colors of Christmas came from the sparkle of lights (usually, screw-in type bulbs that were replaceable were they to burn out), or from bubble lights boiling magically on the tree, and the silvery, whimsical ornaments adorning the bows. 

It was a simpler time.

Toys, too, were of the simpler sort back in, as I describe, the "dark ages".  It's hard to recall any particular toy that we received at Christmas time that required batteries.  Well, perhaps one or two, but as I remember once those batteries finally quit working they were not replaced, rending the toy silent and requiring us to devise an entirely different method to make play with them any fun.

Our board games didn't have electronic spinners, the spelling board I had and loved didn't come equipped with push buttons and sound and our stuffed animals didn't talk or make noise.  Our favorite toys required NO batteries.  I recall some of our favorite, most beloved toys, some of which my siblings and I most likely still own and secretly take out to play with now and then.  See how many of them you remember:

Gumby and Pokey, Barbie & Ken dolls, Slinky, Battling Tops,Troll dolls, See & Spell, Josie and Johnny West, paper dolls, Tinker Toys, Cooties, Lincoln Logs, Tog'ls, ice skates, Mini Grip Gravity, playing cards, Monopoly, Shenanigans, SuperBall, Hot Wheels, Rock 'em Sock ' em Robots, Play-Doh, Spirograph, Spinning Tops, Footsie Toy, View Master, Silly Putty, Clacker Balls, Barrel Full of Monkeys, Etch a Sketch, and a Rubik's Cube, to name just a few.

The toys we did NOT have included an Easy Bake Oven (we learned our way around the real kitchen an early age), Incredible Edibles (probably because of the macabre twist that this represented), or the game Operation.  These all required batteries or electricity after all.

We did, however, have a set of Walkie Talkies that were an awful lot of fun. They required 9-volt batteries and when we were fortunate to have a fresh set of batteries spent many hours using those two-way radios.  I also had what was perhaps all time favorite toy:  a Mattel talking telephone.  It came complete with miniature records that could be loaded into the phone and would provide a conversation with you.  This in fact resembles closely the CD players of today that were at that time not even on the horizon (we were still playing 33 and 45 rpm records at the time).Today it pulls a premium price on Ebay.  I'm not sure what I was thinking when I got rid of that treasured toy.

These days, unless you're shopping the aisles of a retro/reminiscing store, it's tough to find any plaything that isn't driven by AA batteries.  It's a little disconcerting.  The best advice I can offer is this:  buy one of those value packs of batteries and gift wrap those along with the toys.  They'll be every bit as appreciated as the new toy will be.

Or.....buy a book and give that.  (The kind that doesn't talk to you, that is).  You can't go wrong with a book and it will be usable long after the batteries from all of those new-fangled toys are drained completely of their usefulness.

And remember, these are the days that will be fondly remembered oh so many years from now, so try to make them memorable in a wonderful fashion,  I guarantee that things will never be the same again and so treasure the times now, whatever they may be. Hard times are fleeting and forgotten while the good times live on for all times. 

Merry Christmas and a blessed new year to you all.  Make today a beloved memory for tomorrow!