Johnny Seven (the one present I always wanted but never got)
Mouse Trap
Ker-Plunk
Action Man
Balsa Wood airplanes (broken by Boxing Day)

Soap on a rope
Battling Tops
Guinness Book of Records
Annuals (various but particularly Dr Who)
After Eights

Totopoly
Magic Robot (actually not so magic)
The Broons/Oor Wullie Annual
Mamod steam engine
Sekiden gun

Mastermind board game (at least two to be received by each child annually)
Brut aftershave
Bottle of Babycham (under 10s only)
200 B+H
Painting-by-numbers Mona Lisa

A record token (when record meant record)
A bottle of Advocaat
A Thunderbirds annual
A bottle of Old Spice (Advocaat and Old Spice interchangeable)

Haunted House
Campaign
Sorry
Old Master (The art fraud game)
Painting by numbers set

Domino Rally - you might set it up once, but it's unlikely. Unless you've also recieved, as a present, an annex to your house.

Battleship - what do you mean you can't put your aircraft carrier diagonally

Big Trak - travels three feet before batteries need replacing. Big bast'din' batteries too. And the shops are closed today. And tomorrow. We'll get it up and running on the 27th. In the meantime, why not play with

Chemistry set - super concentrated copper sulphate solution doesn't wash easily out of your new white Christmas shirt

Hungry Hippos - just the thing hungover parents need to listen to for hours on end.

1. Hornby Inter City 125 Train Set (old blue and yellow livery) set up on the upstairs hall carpet and subequently buffetted by drunk relatives on the way to the loo.

2. 1978 Topical Times Football Annual (Lou Macari on the front but loads of QPR pictures inside)

3. Grandstand TV Games console. Never mind this Red Dead Redemption and FIFA nonsense - Pong tennis was where it was at. Especially doubles. If you could plug it in to the back of your tv aerial without electrocuting yourself. Prone to corrosion too.

4. Bike. My Raleigh Tomahawk (smaller version of the Chopper and didn't have the gearstick) - man, I loved that bike. My brother got the even smaller version - the Budgie.

5. Itchy Jumper. De rigeur Xmas jumper lovingly hand made by Auntie Gwen or Nanna with, what felt like, the roughest itchiest wool ever to come off the back of Flossie. In fact, I think they only use that type of wool now in loft insulation. Even the slave labour Gap and Primark production lines in deepest, darkest Laos and the Mariniara Islands have the unions in if they go near it. Of course, you HAD to wear the jumper on Xmas Day, despite the arms reaching your knees and the neck hole being so tight as to constrict your airways.

Great days.

Daktari Land Rover with set of plastic animals

The Batmobile (with Batboat & trailer if I've been really good?)

Capt. Scartlet Spectrum SPV

The Joe 90 car

James Bond's Aston Martin DB5 with revolving number plates, ejector seat and pop-up rear bullet-proof shield.

Guiness Book Of World Records
Meccano
Casio "VL" Tone
Buckaroo
Girls World

Evel Knievel stunt motorcycle.

Arrange the Action Man-esque Evel doll onto his motorbike
stand it on the wind up friction launch thing
wind the little handle furiously
off the bike goes, 3 feet and falls over

magic

We were poor...but happy

Totopoly
and Stretch Armstrong
and a Coconut

Escalado
Subbuteo cricket (a strange game. Half the rules were impractical. You had to make up your own as you went along)
Striker
An LP you'd already got

Football shirt Leeds Utd or England (Scotland in 1974) must be Admiral
Wembley Trophy football
Selection box (Cadburys)
Sugar mice

Striker league Champions
Escape from Colditz
Stock car Smash up (wind em up and let em go)
Blue Peter Annual
Tangerines

Crossfire
Rebound.
Forgot anout them two. Crossfile was particularly good.
I think 'these days' only Hungry Hippos comes close as a game of skill and excitement.

Spirograph
Selection box - either in form of net stocking or with interesting cut-out game on back
Some Action Transfers
Hot Wheels or Superfast car track

all in pillow case at foot of bed and to be opened before breakfast, thanks.

One of the highlights of Xmas for me as a wee lad was getting the annual of Carl Giles cartoons from the Daily Express. This tradition went on for over 10 years until I politely stopped it one Xmas when it was noticeable the quality of the old boy's artwork was declining badly each year.

also hand held space invaders game Astro Wars
the Not The Nine O'Clock News LP
Computer Battleship
Colditz the board game

Lovingly posted, and churlishly received:

Look and Learn subscription (aunt the headmistress)
Knitted stripey bobble hat in mismatched colours, stitches and wools (aunt the boozer)
Slippers and dressing gown(grandparents)
Box of Notelets (ghastly giggly girly Canadian cousin, a year older than me with a penchnt for pink frills and shiny satin)
Hand-me-down party dress (aunt the mother of above)

My kids refuse to believe these existed - but they did. Chocolate matches, cigar, pipe, fags. Even then I thought it was slightly odd.

and it's still on my list each year (I know they're just compilations, but the joy never diminishes).

And while reading it: a pack of "Eat Me" dates.

With apologies to those who already know.

The name Subbuteo comes from a small falcon, falco subbuteo, otherwise known as the Eurasian Hobby. (Can you see what they did there?)

Chad Valley give a show picture projector.

Beano / dandy annual (either / or, deffo NOT both)

Victor, preferably.

A Six Million Dollar Man action figure.

The second Darts album.

A good Lego set. The go-kart. Or the tractor.

A Marks & Sparks jumper.

With plastic stand..... *ahhh*

Always a winner as a child ... one of them would always be duff though.

have listed the plastic head, popular in the 70s, to allow small girls to practice applying make up. My daughter had one but her brother ruined it by drawing a beard on it with a Sharpie.

5 or 6 a side, I forget which. The players were stuck in what looked like bomb craters and had a piece of plastic that stuck out from one of their legs that was used to fire a fairly lethal steel ball when you twisted the player.

The Victor annual
A Subbutteo set
Scrabble
A giant selection box
A dart gun (with loads of darts and a selection of toy soldiers to shoot at)

they don't make those plastic cowboys and indians anymore, huh ?
Or plastic forts.
Hours of fun stageing attacks...
I wonder how many cowboys and soldiers I have killed in my childhood, pretending to be "Chief White Feather" or something similar.
I wasn't half bad at taming wild horses either...(not really a big feat when the "wild horse" really was a wooden gate caught with a noose on my skipping rope around the gatepost "head")

Anyone for table croquet ? That was useless, wasn't it ?

It was a moon race featuring 6" spring loaded rocket launchers, a series of rubber tipped rockets, a hollow half moon that clipped over the door and a warning sign with an astronaut that you hung on the outside of the door to stop civilian casualties.

The object of the game was to land your rockets inside the moon from a distance.

Ring any bells with anyone?

1. Sanyo portable cassette player.

2. Shakin' Stevens' greatest hits cassette.

3. C90 blank tape for taping charts.

4. Cadbury's mini Dairy Milk 2p vending machine (empty by 9am Christmas day).

5. I-Spy book.

captured all this in a song:

Manics: Ghost of Christmas (not Christmas Ghost as the poster at YouTube has called it).

One of their best tracks and a firm Christmas favourite chez Red.

Poppin Hoppies - I really wanted this game
Mastermind
Hot Wheels - with the orange track that you clamped to a table and a loop the loop section
Action Man
Top Trumps

- Lego (the 'Technical' variety)
- Airfix Kits
- TCR (apparently "better and more exciting" than Scalextric)
- Various Annuals (usually Beano, Shoot and/or Roy Of The Rovers)
- Geometry Set (ruler, set squares, protractor and compass (ideal for stabbing your younger brother in the leg at dinner-time)

1) Commodore 64 (Still the best and will happily take on any amstrad, Spectrum or BBC Micro fools that say otherwise!)
2) Spiderman annual
3) Snooker Table that was never ever level despite the spirit level telling you otherwise
4) A new Joystick (usually broken by mid january thanks to Daley Thomson decathlon)
5) Raleigh Striker (baby grifter made from cast iron that would also break your legs if it fell on you). Good times

Dating back to the 30s and still around in the 60s, Escalado involved a strip of green cloth vaguely representing a racetrack which was stretched across the best drop-leaf dining room table. Then, much to mum's consternation, it was fixed in position with a set of brutal-looking 'G' clamps (“oh, do mind the veneer!”)

A number of heavy lead model racehorses with tiny jockeys (probably coated in lead-based paint too, to ensure maximum toxicity) were then placed at one end and a handle was cranked vigorously at the other.

This caused the cloth "racetrack" to vibrate and the diminutive stiff-legged steeds would advance at sub-snail's pace toward the finish line.

Realism was the first casualty here, closely followed by almost everyone’s interest. “Cranker’s cramp” (fnnar, fnnar) usually signalled an end to proceedings by the third race. Horses that fell off the table would invariably emerge with one or more missing legs, sidelining them from future participation.

This was before ADHD was invented, naturally.

My mother in law gave my 6 year old son a shoe shining kit.

...and I never owned a bike!

Blue and red Triang tricycle, with pedals attached to front wheel.

First pair of football boots, must have been around 4 years old - ankle high, rigid leather and with toe-caps that could shatter a shin on contact (untested, I hasten to add)

(Photo evidence suggests I spent Christmas day wearing them with...)

Cowboy outfit, complete with felt stetson, chaps with wild-west related transfer pattern that dissolved on contact with the air, and waistcoat, and plastic gun-belt with cap-firing sliver six-gun.

Annuals, lots of them, every year. BTW, if anyone can remember receiving an annual containing beautifully-painted illustrated versions of Custer's Last Stand and King Arthur's final battle, I think under the title Hey-Days, or used to get a weekly comic containing a regular Hey-Days feature, I'd really appreciate a response.

and later...

Sgt Pepper, mono - my first LP.

Worth a bob or two if you can find this range of Denys Fisher figures. See Muton and Android too!

Chad Valley Soccer-rain or shine we would play this. All the kids in the street would have a league.Still popular now.Played it last night and also have one at my mum's so me and my brothers can play when we are at home. Quite rare these days.

Victor annual or Score and Roar/Scorcher annual

Campaign-like Risk but easier

Action Man stuff....never got the tank.Mrs Crout drew the line when i saw one on eBay.

Matchbox track and Ford Escort Mexico 1970 replica car...Like the Orange Hot Wheels track but Yellow.Still have the car.

Can I just say...

This has been a marvellous thread.

That is all.

going to be one lucky boy this Xmas............

A plastic hammer, saw and spanners so you could pretend to be your dad (or someone else's). My mate Charlie had one which was the most realistic I've ever seen and he did some real damage with that saw.
Popular then, and still quite popular now were an assortment of toys whose purpose seemed to be to prepare kids for their future years of drudgery. I was once given a bus conductor's set complete with hat, ticket machine and plastic money. Why does this game become tedious so quickly? Because it's like having a job.
"Dear Santa, when I grow up I hope to be the guitarist in an internationally renowned rock band. I know you'll bring me what I want for Christmas.."
"Dear STD. I have left five heavy amps, some monitors, a few mic stands and a pile of leads for you to pretend to load and unload into an imaginary van. And a microphone you can shout 1..2.. into. Have fun, Santa."