by Michael P Coleman
With Halloween behind us, my mind wafts to an annual, magical day in the home in which I grew up. It always came weeks before Santa Claus miraculously came down the chimney that our family’s ranch house didn’t have.
On that day’s dawn, my mother headed out for her weekly shopping trip — usually at metro Detroit’s sparkly new Fairlane Town Center. Sometimes she went alone, other times with my grandmother, “Ma,” and on some days, a subset of her children accompanied her.
But independent of how that Saturday started each year, it ended the same way: with the delivery of the Sears Holiday Wish Book into my and my brother and sisters’ hot little hands.
Today, in a world replete with iPad-clutching toddlers, it’s hard to convey the impact of that inches-thick catalog’s arrival in our home. Today, kids of all ages can and do shop online. With a few quick clicks and an active Amazon Prime account, today’s kids can have many of their hearts’ desires delivered in a nondescript cardboard carton within hours.
But back in the day, when the colorful Sears Holiday Wish Book was tossed on the kitchen table, and the manifestation of our Christmas dreams was weeks away (if you were lucky), it was a whole different thing.
Click here to read MPC’s nostalgic take on the Sears Wish Book, and see some of its actual pages (of toys!) from back in the day!
Click here to connect with freelance writer Michael P Coleman, click here to check out his blog, or follow him on Instagram and Twitter: @ColemanMichaelP
