This generation will have Christmas memories of WalMart and the mall. My generation has Christmas memories of Sears and Roebuck. I dont remember a time when there wasnt a Sears catalog in our home on Dover Avenue in Sheffield, Alabama. The Big catalog would arrive early each year and by the end of the year, it would be well-worn, with pages turned back or torn out. It was the thickness of at least 3 phone books (another dinosaur of printed material). The cover would be worn along the edges where every member of my family had searched it and dreamed dreams about the contents. My father always went straight for the tools section. Mother checked the clothing section--not for herself but for her three boys. My clothes were to be found in the section called, Chub Boys, where the clothing line was called, Husky. I would head straight for the toy section--after slowing down for a quick look at the womens undergarment section. I was too young in 1963 to fully appreciate that particular section but I memorized the pages of the toy section. Then, about two months before Christmas a special catalog would arrive. My first vivid memory is of the 1963 Sears Christmas catalog. Yes, I even remember Sears Roebuck catalog covers--I guess I cant help it. It was a bright red cover of a door with a Christmas wreath. There would be arguments and yelling if the catalog could not be found. The first place to look was usually the family bathroom, followed by the table beside my daddys favorite chair. I would look through it and pick out the things I wished for, it was known as the, Wish Book. It would have been easier to pick out the things I didnt want. Just as the train displays set up at Sears each Christmas season captivated me, the several pages of electric toy trains in the catalog made me daydream about having one of my own. The Sears catalog was a family tradition that no longer exists. It stopped being automatically delivered in the late 1970s early 80s but you could still pick up a copy anytime you were at Sears but eventually it simply ceased to exist in print. Oh, you can go online and find a website for Sears and click on the multiple windows to select the item you are searching for but no longer can we thumb through the catalog and find things we wanted that we didnt even realize we wanted until the page fell open to that particular treasure. When it got closer to Christmas, our family would load into the family station wagon and cross the Tennessee River, to Florence and spend a couple of hours at our local Sears, looking at and touching those things wed seen in the catalog--(another story, another time). Walmart may have their roll-back circulars each week, but I seriously doubt any child today will recall them fondly and smile when they see one when they are my age.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 13:33:54 +0000
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