by Emily Schilling
EditorEvery year at this time I say it: I can’t believe Christmas is almost here. Thanksgiving snuck up on me, too, this year. I feel like I’m on a carnival ride, spinning nonstop through the holiday season, stopping long enough to eat (because there’s lots of good stuff to eat now!) and showing up at whatever event happens to be scribbled on my calendar.
With my hectic schedule, I’ve ordered many of my Christmas gifts from catalogs. There never seemed to be enough time to go shopping. It was much more convenient to peruse a catalog one evening, then order from it on line the next.
One of my favorite gift catalogs to look through is from a company called Betty’s Attic. It features oodles of retro-style toys and other what-nots from days gone by.
You know you’re getting old when thumbing through a catalog of nostalgic gifts hits you like a case of deja vu.
Take Wacky Packages Stickers. Packaged inside Topps bubblegum in the 1970s, they advertised fictitious products that paradied popular brands. In the Wacky Package world, Post Alpha Bits cereal was called Pest Awful Bits cereal (with a 24-volume encyclopedia in every box). Neveready Assaulted Battery (as opposed to Eveready batteries) was guaranteed to keep you in the dark. Betty’s Attic sells a book which showcases all 223 of those outrageous stickers, which to this day tickle my funny bone.
The catalog also features Fizzies, those drink tablets from the 1960s that you could drop in a glass of water to make flavored drinks. I vaguely remember Fizzie drinks tasting somewhat like Alka-Seltzer (yuck), but it sure was fun to watch the tablets fizz and the water magically changing color. Obviously, it didn’t take much to amaze me.
Since I am a bit of an ’80s trivia buff, the “Deluxe 80s Scene It?” game caught my eye, and not just because I’m sure I could actually win at that game. My daughter is enamored with vintage-style T-shirts, so I’ve noticed all these icons of the 1980s — and even earlier eras — emblazoned on shirts lately. I guess “The Goonies,” the “Brat Pack” and “Full House” are all (believe it or not) cool again.
The bargain hunter in me is very happy retro items are popular now. Why buy reproductions when I probably have genuine artifacts from the old days packed away somewhere in the garage? I just have to find them after this year’s holiday whirlwind ends!