My best Christmas presents

So, with the season coming upon us where we all are obliged to spend money on people we don’t really give a shit about in an attempt to say “see, I do love you” I decided to clamber into the crawl space in my attic and fetch some of my old Christmas presents. Well, my favourites. You can tell they’re my favourites because they still assemble, almost.

Rollin in!

First off is my favourite gift. I don’t recall what age I was, but I was pretty young anyway. Assembling this took all day. It was amazing. I remember being so proud of it when it was done. You make a train, two ends and a middle carriage, a nice platform and a few lego men. This all comes with a small oval-shaped track and some electronic bits so the train can move around. Sadly today, moisture has killed the electronics, but it still looks awesome.

Lots of little men came with it, too. Including the train driver, a porter man with a little trolley to carry bags, two bikes and a bunch of passengers, some of whom have nice blue coffee cups.

Embarking on a long, 20second journey!

Inside the detail is great. the doors open, lights come on the front as it moves, there are tables at the windows, a real-life lego engine and one area for bunk beds – just for those longer journeys!

I had hours of fun making this, let alone playing with it. Though I do recall my uncle coming over having a look at one of the train bits, and dropping it into a thousand pieces. I was devastated as he cruelly laughed it up. To this day, I’m annoyed by the fact that one small piece of the train doesn’t assemble properly because it was lost. Lost, forever.

The whole thing was well worth the money

Away from the train comes my second favourite gift ever. It came at an earlier point in my life when I really liked Star Trek: The Next Generation. I was never a huge fan before or after this. In fact, I’ve never watched one full episode of any more recent Star Trek TV show. The movie was cool, though.

That year I asked for a surprise, because I legitimately didn’t know what I wanted from Santa Clause that year. Not knowing what to expect, I got a cool ass pressie. It was the bridge from The Enterprise, with a few character toys (including Wharf and Piccard, I can’t remember the chicks name).

OH NOES! Romulans!

The screen at the front lit up, showing the same image all the time though. The doors all worked and it had sound effects to emulate the usual techno-babble sounds that would come from the bridge in the TV show. All of the chairs swiveled and moved around, just like the real life fake one!

Each character came with a little Star Trek badge thing that they could stand on (via hole in their foot), but I was also lucky enough to get, what apparently is very rare, a nice branded communicator device. Remember, this was before kids and even non-rich yuppies had mobile phones. I was hot shit with this…

Badges and communicator

The communicator beeps and babbles like the real one, including realistic phaser noises. Just in case you run into some evil scum on your strange other-worldly planets.

This toy was awesome, and provided hours of fun, even after I stopped caring about the TV show. Even when I got bored of the bridge area, I had two other toys to enjoy from that year. Yep – it was a recreation of the two ships, the Enterprise and another one from some enemy that I cannot possibly remember today. I am also too lazy to look it up!

Humping each other. Sexy

Finally is probably one of the last “big” Christmas presents I got as a kid. Before Spiderman was rehashed for cartoons and movies I got the daily bugle. It’s a cheaper remake then the Star Trek bridge, but is cool. Today it’s missing parts but you get the idea.

It had a working lift (no longer working) and even (now gone) goopy sewage stuff to cover Spiderman’s enemies in.

Spidey and Doc Oc

Alongside the building itself I got some characters. Spiderman, obviously, Doc Octocpus, Carnage, Green Goblin and Venom. I’m not sure how my parents picked those figures out, because I never really expressed my love for those particular guys… and I don’t recall writing it down! Either way, these were my faves. It probably says a lot about me that I loved Carnage and Venom…

This gift didn’t give as much as others. Probably because I was a little older, or because the quality of the toys were a bit shit. On day 1, Carnage’s legs broke clean off, and a few days later Venoms leg (that you seductively squished inwards to make his mouth move) broke at the knee. Oh well. Still cool though! I also got a big winged hover-thing for Mr. Goblin that shot out little pumpkin discs. He had a smaller one that shot out little pumpkin bombs, but then attached to the huge one, which had wheels attached to it.

Venom - homeless and destitute

In the end, my most preferred gift was the lego train set. It’s amazing how it still looks great and has most of its parts. It’s such a shame that moisture ruined the electronics, but hey – that didn’t stop me having fun pushing it around the track. Yes, I am 24.

It’s also worth mentioning my biggest childhood toy regret is my fantastic Earthworm Jim. I loved it. The show was awesome and I got Jim while my brother got his pal, Peter. Peter came with two toys, little Peter and then a bigger “angry Peter” dog version. Awesome.

The issue was that you pressed a little button on Jims back to pop his worm-head out of the suit. Which I did. I fired it across the room, probably at my brother. We couldn’t find it. Searched for about an hour and pulled the room apart trying to find it. Ultimately it was lost in the sands of time, but was likely later hoovered up. Such a shame, I loved that guy. If anyone wants to donate an Earthworm Jim toy to me – I’m good to receive!

Anyway, I took a load of photo’s in addition to the ones above today, so enjoy the gallery below…