![Matty Mattell<\/a> talking doll. That same year, my older sister received the](\"http:\/\/www.dollreference.com\/images\/matty_talker1961mattel1.jpg\"){kind=link}
![Sister Belle<\/a> talking doll, and my younger sister received the](\"http:\/\/www.dollreference.com\/images\/sister_belle1961mattelb.jpg\"){kind=link}
– Go for Broke<\/a> board game. My older sister received the Clue? board game the same year.<\/p>\n – Plush monkey, not one of my favorite toys, and a bit worse for the wear, but I still have this one.<\/p>\n – Mr. Ed<\/a> talking hand puppet, who said phrases such as “The phone is ringing, shall I answer?”, “My shoes are good luck”, “Just call me Mr. Ed”, “My girl friend has a pony tail”, “Isn’t it silly talking to a horse?”, “I’m a horse, of course… ‘whinny'”, “I’ll be the horse, you be the buggy”, “Who has a horse face?…’snort'”, “Come on let’s talk”, and “Oh…horse feathers” .\u00a0 Click on the link to hear the phrases<\/a>. I still have this puppet. The same year, my older sister received a Woody Woodpecker<\/a> talking hand puppet and my younger sister received a Bozo the Clown<\/a> talking doll.<\/p>\n – Erector Powermatic Motor Set<\/a> and, yes, I did build the robot shown on the cover. The battery operated electric motor that came with the set allowed the robot to move under its own power.<\/p>\n – A highway interchange and bridge construction set. I loved this toy and spent hours and hours building highway interchanges and bridges, taking them apart, and building new ones.<\/p>\n As children,\u00a0my sisters and I\u00c2\u00a0didn’t often give Christmas presents to others. We usually didn’t have any money to buy gifts. One Christmas, however, my younger sister and I decided to buy my mother new towels. Between the two of us, we still didn’t have enough money to buy the towels, but a kind sales clerk adjusted the price down to the amount we did have. As we turned in our cash to pay for the towels, the clerk remarked that the coins were warm. I suppose they must have been .\u00a0My sister and I had clutched the coins in our tight little fists all day until we paid for the towels.<\/p>\n Written for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories<\/font><\/a> – Day 10 .\u00a0<\/p>\n Copyright \u00a9 2007 by Stephen J. Danko<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I lived at home for the first 19 years of my life and, although I must have received hundreds of Christmas presents in that time, I remember very few. Continue reading ![\"Christmas](\"http:\/\/www.dollreference.com\/images\/casper_ghost16mattel1963.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
![Mr. Ed<\/a> talking hand puppet, who said phrases such as “The phone is ringing, shall I answer?”, “My shoes are good luck”, “Just call me Mr. Ed”, “My girl friend has a pony tail”, “Isn’t it silly talking to a horse?”, “I’m a horse, of course… ‘whinny'”, “I’ll be the horse, you be the buggy”, “Who has a horse face?…’snort'”, “Come on let’s talk”, and “Oh…horse feathers” .\u00a0 Click on the link to](\"http:\/\/wherethetoysare.com\/images\/ed2.jpg\"){kind=link}
![Woody Woodpecker<\/a> talking hand puppet and my younger sister received a](\"http:\/\/www.gasolinealleyantiques.com\/images\/Puppets%20Page\/hp-talkingwoody.JPG\"){kind=link}
![Bozo the Clown<\/a> talking doll.<\/p>\n– Erector Powermatic Motor Set<\/a> and, yes, I did build the robot shown on the cover. The battery operated electric motor that came with the set allowed the robot to move under its own power.<\/p>\n– A highway interchange and bridge construction set. I loved this toy and spent hours and hours building highway interchanges and bridges, taking them apart, and building new ones.<\/p>\nAs children,\u00a0my sisters and I\u00c2\u00a0didn’t often give Christmas presents to others. We usually didn’t have any money to buy gifts. One Christmas, however, my younger sister and I decided to buy my mother new towels. Between the two of us, we still didn’t have enough money to buy the towels, but a kind sales clerk adjusted the price down to the amount we did have. As we turned in our cash to pay for the towels, the clerk remarked that the coins were warm. I suppose they must have been .\u00a0My sister and I had clutched the coins in our tight little fists all day until we paid for the towels.<\/p>\nWritten for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories<\/font><\/a> – Day 10 .\u00a0<\/p>\nCopyright \u00a9 2007 by Stephen J. Danko<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I lived at home for the first 19 years of my life and, although I must have received hundreds of Christmas presents in that time, I remember very few. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[161],"class_list":["post-2020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-journal","tag-advent-calendar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pyBfX-wA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2020\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"http:\/\/www.atlantaantiquegallery.com\/wsm?image=MattelBozoTheClownDoll1884014407.jpg\"){kind=link}
![Erector Powermatic Motor Set<\/a> and, yes, I did build the robot shown on the cover. The battery operated electric motor that came with the set allowed the robot to move under its own power.<\/p>\n– A highway interchange and bridge construction set. I loved this toy and spent hours and hours building highway interchanges and bridges, taking them apart, and building new ones.<\/p>\nAs children,\u00a0my sisters and I\u00c2\u00a0didn’t often give Christmas presents to others. We usually didn’t have any money to buy gifts. One Christmas, however, my younger sister and I decided to buy my mother new towels. Between the two of us, we still didn’t have enough money to buy the towels, but a kind sales clerk adjusted the price down to the amount we did have. As we turned in our cash to pay for the towels, the clerk remarked that the coins were warm. I suppose they must have been .\u00a0My sister and I had clutched the coins in our tight little fists all day until we paid for the towels.<\/p>\nWritten for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories<\/font><\/a> – Day 10 .\u00a0<\/p>\nCopyright \u00a9 2007 by Stephen J. Danko<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I lived at home for the first 19 years of my life and, although I must have received hundreds of Christmas presents in that time, I remember very few. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[161],"class_list":["post-2020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-journal","tag-advent-calendar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pyBfX-wA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2020\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"http:\/\/www.samstoybox.com\/toypics\/ErectorSetBox.jpg\"){kind=link}