I would look at the Sears Wish Book for hours

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AreYouDoneNow@reddit

I think it's one of the saddest parts of growing old is losing the sense of excitement and wonder at things like gift and toy catalogues.

It's great to see kids experiencing that sense of wonder but I also miss experiencing it.

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FillLoose@reddit

Me too! Sears and JCPenney had great christmas catalogs.

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WideStreet7125@reddit

Montgomery Ward had good catalogs as well.

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I loved those catalogs, we didn’t have it so great growing up and I used imagine what it would be like to have a family like in the photos. I know that sounds dumb but spent most of time alone or forced to be the family baby sitter for all the cousins. It sucked sometimes but I survived.

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Automatic-Unit-8307@reddit

I was -poor and just imaged getting any toys.

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WideStreet7125@reddit

I got 9 dolls one year; unfortunately, a little girl came to the house and didn't have any gifts, so I had to give her. one.

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Chateaudelait@reddit

It was a very fun part of my childhood also. I would also wish for those big huge toy and candy filled stockings. I always longed for the beautiful baby dolls and a pretty flannel nightgown. I was always amazed as a child that there were big families and kids and new clothes and toys.

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jtphilbeck@reddit

Yep.

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WideStreet7125@reddit

God, I used to read the Sears catalog everyday from when it came out in Summer til Christmas.

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Any_Initiative_9079@reddit

Now we get the stupid Amazon Christmas catalog

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retro_lady@reddit

We got the JC Penney one! I remember how it smelled!

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Texas-cane@reddit

Was looking for this comment. The nostalgia.

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OccamsComb@reddit

Came here to say this, I can still distinctly remember the smell

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BlueSnaggleTooth359@reddit

This is where I got my Blue Snaggletooth!

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BlueSnaggleTooth359@reddit

Oh man it was magical. The best!

And I must've looked at that very one.

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kitzelbunks@reddit

I remember looking at things and wondering who got the stuff sometimes. The Mc Carthy dummy, the kit where you made glasses out of bottles, and many “toys” for older kids were perplexing to me.

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Puzzleheaded_Pilot_2@reddit

I remember a time when most of catalog was in black and white with barely any pictures loved it . I remember picking returnable bottles and making enough to go skating. When the family went grocery shopping they would give out Greenback Stamps and you would fill out books with these stamps, you could a catalogue with it as well showing the choices you had and how many books you needed to get said item. They would exchange the. Bottles for stamps too. This is how I got my first video game PONG!

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Jetski43@reddit

And hours.

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Adventurous-Topic-54@reddit

And hours.

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Because_They_Asked@reddit

At one section in particular …

Toys, the toys section. The kids’ toys section.

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Impressive_Star_3454@reddit

The last section in the back if memory serves.

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jtphilbeck@reddit

You looked at the lingerie section….

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PrestegiousWolf@reddit

Jcpennys was a bit more risqué

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drunk_with_internet@reddit

Nah the pages are always all stuck together in that section

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Because_They_Asked@reddit

Chandlet

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Mets1st@reddit

Not if I got it before my brother

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jtphilbeck@reddit

Haha!!!!!

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foetus_lp@reddit

i use to use a pencil eraser to try and erase bras

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SnatchAddict@reddit

gif

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crackersncheeseman@reddit

Upon hours

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Beneficial_Being_721@reddit

AND HOURS

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RG1527@reddit

CIRCLE ALL THE THINGS

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cybermage@reddit

Killing the catalog was the beginning of the end.

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cavalier78@reddit

When I was a teenager, I really loved the bra ads.

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fluffycatscrote@reddit

We kept an extra in the bathroom, with a marker for circling stuff we wanted. It was much better than Reader's Digest to pass the time.

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Deadward_Snowedin@reddit

Totally yes!! And Speigel too!!

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Yasashii_Akuma156@reddit

Same here, and I was thrilled in the 90s and 00s when sites like plaidstallions and lileks started featuring scans online so I could skip collecting mouldy old catalogs!

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Automatic-Unit-8307@reddit

I lived half a block from a Sears. Used to go to the 2nd floor in Toy section and there was this guy that would always kick me out. Wonder how miserable this guy was getting his joy from kicking out a 8 years old from the toy section. No one else in other departments kicked me out, spent a lot of time looking at those catalog on the 3rd floor.

Hated those Toughskins my mom bought instead of Levis

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ArsenicWallpaper99@reddit

This was better than actually opening presents.

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International-Mix425@reddit

The women's underwear section was my first experience with porn!!

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Altruistic-Ad6449@reddit

Thanks for sharing, dreamkilla

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Jumpy_Platform_1610@reddit

I’m pretty sure my brother and I had those matching pjs

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zenomotion73@reddit

Makes me wanna cry. I wish I could go back and stay there

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january1977@reddit

Amazon has a wish book now. My 4 year old does the same thing we used to do. He says it’s his favorite book. 😆

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mfk_1974@reddit

Toys and porn under the same cover. It didn't get much better than that.

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bankyVee@reddit

The Sears wishbook, JC Penney catalog and the Montgomery Ward catalog were required reading during the holidays.

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Specific_Ad_97@reddit

The Bikes & the Atari's!

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Ok-Fondant5026@reddit

I still want the RC motorcycle even though it was probably garbage.

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Simple-Purpose-899@reddit

Go through the whole thing, dog ear pages, aaaaand not get a single thing from it in the end. I feel like they were just designed to keep kids quiet for awhile.

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Thinks_of_stuff@reddit

That, and the JC Penney Gigantic catalog. Hours drained

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blusins@reddit

My husband and I was talking a few days ago about what we missed and this was on top of the list. There was something magical about getting that in the mail and just looking at it dreaming.

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chaoshaze2@reddit

My brothers and I would get so excited for the wish book to arrive. It was almost a holiday itself

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fridayimatwork@reddit

This was a poor kids dream and nightmare. Does anyone remember thinking the “luxury”products were the apex of wealth and success then learning they were crap?

For me it was marzipan. Those little fruits looked so appealing. I always assumed they tasted like fruit but better and richies sat around in their furs counting their diamonds eating them.

Fast forward to seeing my mother in law had a box someone had sent her and me reverently asking if I could try them and they realizing they were disgusting

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shutupb4uruinit@reddit

It was mesmerizing

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fundad76@reddit

My sister and I use to fight over it... lol

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j1knra@reddit

I miss the wish book days but not so much that I appreciate the soul sucking abomination of the Amazon gift catalog.

I mean really what a crock! Amazon runs major chains out of biz and then tries to capture market share by bringing back a gift catalog?!?!?!?

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dagbrown@reddit

The damnedest thing is that Sears absolutely could have nipped Amazon in the bud (or just bought it outright). However, the CEO, Eddie Lampert, a dumb fucking asshole and generally-useless piece of shit, had some seriously weird-ass über-libertarian ideas about how everyone had to compete for dollars, even within the same company, and basically pitted all of the different divisions of the company against each other in a kind of intracorporate battle royale cage match. Sears fell because they were too busy fighting against Sears to be bothered competing with anyone else.

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Affectionate_Pen_439@reddit

Me and my brother and sister were really young when we would play a game with it called design your house in which we took turns flipping open the catalog and whatever page it opened on is where you chose your next item to put in your house. We had imaginations

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