Before Walmart And The Internet We Had The Sears And Montgomery Ward Christmas Wish Books

 

Montgomery Ward Christmas Catalog 1967

The first actual sign of Christmas wasn’t snow or  lights. It wasn’t even the tree. It was the sound of something heavy hitting the kitchen table.

 

You knew that sound.

 

You came running from the living room or outside. From wherever you were. Because if you didn’t grab it first, your brother or sister would.

 

The Christmas Wish Book had arrived.

 

Sears. Montgomery Ward. Sometimes both, if the timing lined up just right. And when they showed up, the entire house changed.

 

Christmas had officially started.

 

You didn’t ease into those catalogs. You dove in headfirst. Spread it out. Flip fast at first, almost frantic, like you were afraid it might disappear. Then slow it down. Because now you were looking. Really looking.

 

Page by page, the world opened up.

Top Ten Cartoons Every Iowa Kid Watched In The 1960s

If you were a kid in Iowa in the 1960s, cartoons weren’t this magical all-day buffet. There were no choices. No DVR or VCR. You got what you got. Couple channels. Maybe three if things were going your way.

The weather could mess it up. So could wind. Half the time you were standing there messing with rabbit ears like you were cracking a safe. Especially if you were trying to pull in that one UHF channel from Rockford. Or Minneapolis.

 

And when something finally came in—maybe a little fuzzy. You watched it. Didn’t matter what it was.

Top Ten Toys Iowa Boys Played With In The 1960s

 

You won’t believe how much fun kids had with this stuff—and none of it plugged in or connected to the internet.

 

Iowa kids didn’t sit still long in the 1960s. If you weren’t outside, you were in the basement making your own action.

 

These toys got dirty. They got dropped, smashed, and dragged across gravel.

 

No rules. No instructions. Just imagination and whatever you had on hand.

 

These were the must-haves. The ones every kid either owned—or wished he did.