Holiday Gift Guide for Me, 1997 (Age 10)
1. Let’s be real: Beanie Babies are just an investment. Over the past year, I’ve collected approximately 100 Beanie Babies. That’s roughly $700 you’ve spent, which later will turn into about $10,000 or more. In the past year alone, 14 of my Beanie Babies have become retired, and are probably now a goldmine. Please see the attached spreadsheet for a full list of the Beanie Babies I own, and the ones I am still waiting on. To give you an idea, Batty the Bat, Hoppity the Bunny, Lefty the Donkey, and Nuts the Squirrel are all incredibly desirable. By purchasing me these items, you are contributing to both my college and your retirement funds. Do the math.
2. Please buy me a denim jacket, like the one Paul Reiser wears on Mad About You. I haven’t yet decided if I want to marry him, or become him, and a matching jacket could possibly accomplish both. I don’t want one of those jackets from the Gap Kids girl section with studs or flare. I want a boy’s one, like he has. I foresee myself sporting this jacket, running into Paul, and having much to talk about, such as our mutual love of jean material.
3. I think this past year I have shown my commitment and devotion to my ever-growing keychain collection. Therefore, I am requesting more keychains. I realize that at this stage in life I am still not allowed out of the house alone and thus lack a house key (a point to be discussed at a later date), but as you have seen, I use each keychain as a keychain for my other keychains. Types of keychains I will accept as gifts: animals that are also flashlights, miniature board games with workable pieces, animals that are also pens, a Kipling thumb-sucking monkey. (Please no rubbery names of states. I’m not a pleb.)
4. I would love a Nickelodeon-brand telephone. The kind with the the green plastic “slime” all over the buttons, that has a cow moo-ing as its ringtone, and that lights up orange when someone calls. I will put it on my antiquey wooden desk that you installed in my room without my knowledge or approval. I think it will add some much needed pizzazz.
5. Speaking of which, anything from Ikea would be nice. Specifically one of those white fake rabbit rugs, a bright blue beanbag chair, and one of those big butterfly chairs. Really just as closely as you can get my room to resemble page 8 of the catalog. I’m preparing for tweendom.
6. You may or may not have noticed I still have several blank glossy white pages in my sticker book. I’m hoping these pages will fill up soon, and honestly, I don’t care with what. I like stickers of almost anything. Ocean stuff, ballet stuff, food/diner stuff, multicultural people, etc. If you really want to treat me, get me those oily stickers that change colors when you press on them, or those fuzzy ones with googly eyes. Hint: stickers make great “present toppers.”
7. A stack of blank VHS tapes might be nice. I’ve been using the ones I find around the house to record episodes of Friends just in case they are never available for purchase and in 20 years I would like to continue to watch them. I’ve been able to fit about 10-12 episodes on the 6-hour tapes, but the 9-hour ones would be more desirable, as there is an hour-long two-part holiday episode coming up, and I would like to make sure they are preserved on one cassette. You cannot imagine my disappointment when a tape runs out halfway through a very special episode
Where are they now? – 2011
1. Though I clung to the storage crate for dear life, my Beanie Babies have since been donated to Kids Without Beanie Babies, a charity I care deeply about. Old Beanie Babies are now sold for between one and five dollars on eBay.
2. I received a denim vest, as it was all that was left in the Gap Kids boys' department. I wore it anyway. I even met Paul Reiser years later. I thought about telling him the story of the denim vest, but instead decided to act aloof, like didn’t even care who he was, and had no idea he was once on a show.
3. I was given keychains for years, until I amassed a giant ball of useless plastic keychain garbage. Kind of like how I imagine a rat king to form. I don’t know where it is now. I can only imagine it’s been melted down and repurposed.
4. I also received a Nickelodeon telephone. It not only had a moo ringtone, but also one that sounded like a child screaming. I used it until it became something really lame I hid in my closet, and then something I put back into use, ironically.
5. Over the years, I gradually got my room to look more or less like page 8 of the Ikea catalogue. It was hideous. It looked like a Swede threw up in there. Later in life, I longed for the antique wooden furniture my mom got rid of, per my obnoxious and misguided request.
6. Any stickers received are now in sticker heaven, as they were peeled and re-peeled too many times to continue to serve their purpose. I am still accepting stickers as present toppers, on top of real, expensive presents.
7. Friends is now available on DVD.
Emma Barrie has also written for the New York Times and This Recording.
Illustration by John Urquhart.
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In '97 I was 8 and got a Nintendo 64 and a copy of Diddy Kong Racing which I opened with great glee. Then I put it down and watched my uncles play it and cried when they left.
@Josh is like Germany Ambitious and Misunderstood That is sad, and very sweet!
I can visualize very clearly a photo of me, age 10, showing off all my beanie babies. beanie babies on the book shelf, beanie babies on my lap, beanie babies in my hand, happy meal mini beanie babies sitting on regular sized beanie babies. They really only go for $5?! What if the tag is preserved perfectly in a little tag protector?! (no idea where mine are anyway)
what about those little dogs that came with the candy or something? I had all of them I think.
other 10 year old me requests: sailor moon cards … sailor moon cards … probably that weird book about a wizarding kid that everybody's been talking about?
@redheadedandcrazy I remember going to a friend's birthday and being adamant that we had to get her Batty the Bat. My mom worked at a toy store so off we went, where there was a pile, nay, MOUND in the middle of the store taller than my ten-year-old self of just Beanie Babies. We destroyed it like a leaf pile to find one sole Batty the Bat, in the innermost regions, which should have been a sign that it was very coveted back in the day… Sometimes when I feel poor I imagined us having sold it for RICHES, so the fact that it is now worth nothing makes me feel better.
I got my sister a Sailor Mars keychain + other Sailor Scout paraphernalia worth a couple of weeks of allowance, and it is still probably the most successful present I've gotten her.
@redheadedandcrazy I don't think that anyone who gives me a gift for my whole life ever will ever be able to top the birthday I got both Princess AND Erin. My aunt apparently had some SERIOUS connections at the absolute height of Princess and Erins' popularity. To this day, it has to be THE greatest gift I have ever received.
@redheadedandcrazy My poor little cousin "received" a beanie baby every birthday and Christmas from a (supposedly) well-meaning aunt who took it upon herself to "keep them nice for her" in a glass case. I assume the entire thing went the way of the yard sale without my cousin ever putting her mitts on them. Call me Cassandra but even in my youth I doubted that a mass-produced, *self-described* collector's craze could possibly translate into future wealth.
@Elleohelle does it show how far I've fallen if I admit I don't know whether princess and erin are beanie babies or sailor moon characters?!
beanie babies right? … right?
@toastercat Ahh the keychains! I was in middle school in 1997, and I and the four other girls who made up our little group of friends each got a different Sailor Scout keychain, dependent on the one we were the most like. I was Sailor Mercury!
My nine-year-old cousin had all of the Sailor Moon dolls and the wand and the compact and I was SO JEALOUS but I had to conceal it because I knew I was probably technically too old to want those things.
@redheadedandcrazy They're totally beanie babies! They were the bears. The purple Princess Di bear and the green Irish bear. I remember them retailing in QVC for like $200 a piece! Beanie baby mania was in full swing and as a 4th grader I was CERTAINLY NOT IMMUNE.
@redheadedandcrazy By the end of it all I had over 100. I used to get my mum to buy me "rare" ones for my birthday. It makes me wince when I think about how much I spent on them. I still remember my horror upon realising I'd removed the tag from Patty the Platypus.
@Elleohelle Oh the BEARS! RIGHT! We had a bunch of those too in my family because MY MOM was obsessed with them. Me, could care less about bears versus the UNICORN WHICH WAS THE BEST, but she definitely had bears in plastic cases.
@antarcticastartshere SO DID WE!! I was Sailor Mars (later to be switched to Sailor Uranus, for reasons that later became obvious to everyone). We didn't have a Sailor Mercury. I had the compact and the wand, as well as a host of bootlegged items I bought in Chinatown.
@redheadedandcrazy THE UNICORN HAD MY BIRTHDAY so I clearly loved it the best.
@rebecca@twitter There is a Patty the Platypus that randomly sits on top of the coffee-maker (?) inside a kitchen in one of my work offices. I see her and just feel like she's my childhood staring at me, making judgements about where I am in my life.
Why did you pretend not to have heard of Paul Reiser, you loon?
In 1997, I turned 21…
What have I done with my life?
@AnthroK8 I'm gonna guess that you lived it in the appropriately linear time fashion.
@AnthroK8 I'm hearing your comment as an Inspiral Carpets reference, as I was 21 then too…
@AnthroK8 I was 25. Feel better now?
@Bebe I was 25, too. (WE ARE STILL YOUNG DAMMIT)
@WastedPaper I still *feel* 25 – that should count, right? RIGHT?
@Awesomely Nonfunctional WHO DOES THAT.
@AnthroK8 I was 18 and this made me feel old too.
@WastedPaper Ah, I was 22. Always nice to see some other old farts on here. Some fartier than others.
@kayjay Whippersnapper!!! *shaking cane at sky*
@WastedPaper I do believe I asked Santa for a good divorce attorney in 1997. He delivered!
@kayjay Arghhh – that's when I got married! Why didn't that bastard intercept? WHYYYY
@WastedPaper And I was 27. Give me back my cane.
*farts*
@WastedPaper Don't shake it so hard! Remember your sciatica!
@AnthroK8 Me too! Incredibly, I have only aged about 7 years since then. #itsokaytolieifyoustillgetcarded
I used to come back the VCR six times or so to make sure it was on SLP. SLP, you're the only setting that matters.
@JessicaLovejoy Super long play! I wonder how many people who read this will have no idea what we're talking about.
@bitzyboozer IS THAT WHAT IT STOOD FOR?
The mind, she reels.
@bitzyboozer SLP! and the fucking tracking was NEVER right! And remember how in tv listings, they would list numbers next to tv shows and you could program the numbers into the vcr so it would tape the program and you didn't even have to watch it for it to record? Well..I never figured out how it worked, but I remember really wanting to learn.
@JessicaLovejoy SLP for life! I also remember doing things like taping Undressed and labeling the tapes with other titles so my parents wouldn't know.
In 1997 I was 8 and my whole family went to see a newly released movie called "Titanic". When the steamy car sex scene popped up, my mom covered my eyes with her hand, but conveniently splayed her fingers so I could catch all the confusing glory that it was.
Thanks Mom.
@vapur To this day I cannot watch that movie with my dad. TOO awkward.
Which is why I need this.
@vapur I remember my parents renting the video (I must have been eight or nine) and it being immensely awkward. I haven't watched it all the way through since.
My grandma obssesively collected all of the McDonalds Beanie Babies toys for all 7 of her grandkids. She figured it would be a good investment for us. She ended up with a freezer full of McDonalds apple pies and I have no idea where my collection is. Charity probably.
@Xaxa At the height of the Beanie Baby craze, I was stuck in an airport and hungry (I was an adult – I'm old). I stopped at the McDonalds and ordered a Happy Meal which was cheaper than getting the different elements separately. When they gave it to me, I said, "Oh, you know – I don't need the toy. Just keep it." The woman behind me, who was probably in her late 50s, was shocked that I didn't want the Beanie Baby, and told me that they were really valuable. So I said, "Do you want it?" Honestly, it was like I'd just given her a million dollars – she was so happy! Maybe that was your grandma?!
@Bebe It certainly would have made her day!
@Bebe I was not allowed to eat fast food, so the mini Beanie Babies were the MOST coveted of the plastic bean filled animals. You are so gracious.
@Xaxa I made my dad eat happy meals for lunch until I had all the McDonalds beanie babies. I also have no idea where they are currently.
As I was also 10 in 1997, this hit pretty close to home (i.e. we had pretty much the same christmas list). Only maybe add red platform sketchers sneakers and a fuzzy pen from the limited too?
Also, my mother is still teasing me because I had the same rationale for needing beanie babies. Just last week: "Why do you need loans for grad school, you have a whole box of beanie babies still in the attic!"
@Nic Knack ok my memory is fuzzy on this (since I was 10 in 1997 as well) but was there like a book that told us what the value was for each Beanie Baby? I slightly remember this. Looking back, it's kinda weird that we all cared about their values-it's like stock trading with dolls.
Edited to clarify: my username is not because of Beanie Babies!! I swear it's a nickname.
@beanie oh yes you mean the Official Ty Beanie Baby Value Guide that was released apparently multiple seasons per year, like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Beanie-Babies-Winter-Collectors-Value/dp/1888914629/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1323888858&sr=8-7
I absolutely did not have TWO of these guides. Also, its funny you compare this to stock trading as I now have zero interest in the stock market. The crash of the Beanie Baby market must have ruined my financial interests for good.
@Nic Knack now we have solved the mystery of why girls aren't good at math! (J/K, I'm sure some girls are good at math, just not me..)
Forget the denim jacket, I had an entire denim outfit. It was awesome.
@dj pomegranate
AKA a Canadian tuxedo!
@dj pomegranate Nice! I remember hemming and hawing over whether a denim jacket should or should not be worn with other denim–would matching washes be overkill? Are mismatched washes a faux pas? Is this a moot point from now until fashion's end?
@Saiko All my washes matched and also my jeans had ruffles on their high waist. I was the paragon of 1993 fashion!
My only defense for the amount of energy I expended on taping episodes of Friends is that back in those dark ages, affordable TV-on-DVD collections didn't exist yet. I remember all too well the summer I went to camp for two weeks and didn't have any way to program the VCR to tape for the second week…so much angst.
@Valley Girl I used to have to tape things for my sister if she had to work or had a school thing. WOE BETIDE US if we forgot.
@Craftastrophies I remember my brother once being reduced to tears of rage when we didn't get the video recording until a few minutes into that week's episode. ("Enemies", Season 3. I don't know why my brain thinks this information is useful.)
@Valley Girl Even worse, I took obsessively detailed notes on every episode of Pokémon I watched because I just had no concept that that episode could or would ever appear again.
oh my god. were you me?
My 'keychain king' is chilling in the closet right now. I had lots of sparkly state ones. They coexist next to the numerous important,serious looking leather journals I requested whose pages are full of stickers, Sailor Moon cards and doodles.
@Whitney@twitter Do you remember those pooping animal keychains? You'd squeeze and a little turd would come out the back? For some reason they were a prize in the 6th grade magazine drive (Middle schoolers definitely need more excuses to make poop jokes, good idea people-in-charge) so I ended up with way too many. And I was aiming towards the scooter, too….
I was 9 in 1997, and all I wanted was a hardcover copy of Memoirs of a Bookbat, and a walkman with a built in radio. Also, more stickers to decorate my boombox with.
I got an inordinate amount of satisfaction by skipping the ads whilst recording friends and therefore managing to squeeze one whole EXTRA episode on to a cassette.
Hmmm … I think recording your own VHS might just be the 1997 equivalent of churning your own butter.
@teaandcakeordeath : Oh, oh, God…it's true. We are the pioneers to the current generation's Robber-Barons.
@Beck Rea@facebook
Ha – maybe one day in the long distant future there will be reenactments of 90's teens listening to music on battery operated tape cassettes and trying to meet up without the aid of mobile phones.
@teaandcakeordeath My hipster husband just released a split EP with another band on a cassette-only indie label. I am not kidding. To be perfectly fair to him, it was the other band who insisted on the format.
I didn't have any keys when I was ten, so I just attached keychains to anything and everything w/ a zipper. At one point my backpack had at least five keychains, all of which sported SUPER COOL sassy slogans like, "Money isn't everything, but it's right up there with oxygen." One of life's great tragedies was that my name was too unusual to show up on any of those personalized license plate keychains.
But if you didn't have money for keychains, I would have appreciated a mix tape that I could listen to w/ my walkman.
Not gonna lie, in 1997 I was also still interested in American Girl dolls, and would have been happy to accept any doll paraphernalia.
ETA: Also, BLOW-UP CHAIRS! If they had feathers and glitter inside, ALL THE BETTER.
@D.@twitter Update, 2011: Still interested in American Girl(tm) Dolls. But have to pretend I want adult things, like money to pay off student debt.
@D.@twitter yes yes yes a thousand times yes to all of this but especially american girl dolls and blow up chairs.
@D.@twitter My best friend got me a second American Girl doll, Rebecca, for my 21st birthday because my parents did not get me the right one in 1997 (I accepted it graciously and played with it a ton, but was quietly disappointed for years and years) and she still gets me outfits and stuff for her for Christmas, birthdays, and special events like my college graduation. You just need a similar unabashedly nostalgic friend.
@Nic Knack and glow-in-the-dark star stickers for my ceiling!
@D.@twitter My best friend and I amassed very specific keychain collections. They had to be state license plates with the name "Nancy" on them. Neither of us is named Nancy. I guess we had a budding sense of irony?
@D.@twitter I had an inflatable chair with a whole bunch of squeaky frogs (sort of rubber-ducky-esque) inside it, and it was the coolest thing ever.
@D.@twitter This article reminded me very clearly how I felt, starting around 1997 and then all the way through high school, as if I just wasn't quite getting it somehow. I never understood why people wanted the stuff they wanted. I would get it too, so I could fit in, but then I would look at my beany babies and keychains and not feel the joy everybody else seemed to? I was like an anthropoligist who was carefully mimicking the native fashions but without really understanding their significance. I really just wanted to play with American Girl dolls, but once everybody got all tween-ed out that wasn't cool anymore. Sad face.
@D.@twitter Through middle school(and high school, actually, come to think of it) I had a foot-long string of keychains attached to my wallet that I would wear at the hip every single day. It's in a box somewhere now, and I can't look at it since it's fallen so far from its former glory. So many baubles lost!
@D.@twitter I had a sassy keychain that said "I do not discriminate, I hate everyone." I remember this because I found it in my parent's house recently. They are still really surprised that I'm kind of a misanthrope (at least my behaviors are consistent!)
@pterodactgirl Yup. I'd be the one going 'oh! Is that a trend! Shit, jump on it jump on it!' As much as I want to smack Amy in Little Women, I totally identify with the limes thing. And the cards thing in the Little House series. I just wanted to not be the weeiiirrdddoooo! Too bad, I guess?
This is a bit of a shitty video, but relevant, I think.
I was 12 and I think by then my preferred Christmas presents were giant stacks of books.
Also Sarah McLachlin CDs.
@SarahP BUT my bedroom door (which is now my brother's bedroom door) was covered in stickers, many of which still cannot be removed to this day.
@SarahP
Oh God, because of THAT Buffy episode I listened to Full of Grace on repeat.
Which is far more frustrating on a tape deck.
@teaandcakeordeath Especially when just that one bit of tape wears out.
Oh the key chains. I remember a purple LLbean backpack I had (not a cool Jansport one), my initials embroidered above the reflective strip, and every zipper pull having at least two key chains attached to it.
This sounds a lot like me in 97 (and 99, when I was actually ten). I was convinced- CONVINCED! that Beanie Babies were going to be worthwhile in the future. I don't even know where my collection is now.
@ms. alex
I'm still waiting for the future to happen, but it's always "now"! ::shakes fist::
@ms. alex My husband is always talking about going through his hundreds – HUNDREDS – of baseball cards to find that one rare one that is going to enable us to retire forever. He just doesn't understand how they didn't turn into the magical investment he'd imagined they'd be when he was 10.
@Bebe: For a little while, baseball cards were pretty hot. What had happened, was that modern baseball cards were a manufactured collectible (like Beanie Babies), but they also existed in the past as a non-intentioned collectible; when the market was hot, the old cards were worth quite a bit. Like all things of this nature (including many recent newsworthy topics!), the bubble collapsed and the market disappeared.
Congratulations on meeting Paul Reiser! Will that be another post? Weirdly I had tons of keychains in 1997 for some reason too…was that a thing?
@Saiko It must have been a Thing since I had them too. And if I've learned anything from the NYT, three people constitutes a Thing.
@Knows The Spanish Panic Annnnnd we have the requisite consensus!
@Saiko I think it's a 10-12 year old Thing, rather than a 1997 Thing, because I did the same at 10-12 (in the late 80s), and I teach 10-12 year olds now and they are still doing it.
Speaking of stickers … my brother who is 21 and kind of a dudebro but with sweet quirky sensibilities asked me for stickers for XMas. I'm feeling out of touch – are stickers making a comeback as a college fad? Are there indie sticker makers or should I try and track him down some Lisa Frank classics? I tried to ask him these questions, but he told me that would make it too easy.
@bowerbird Go for Lisa Frank! How could anyone turn those stickers down?
@bowerbird I'd go with scratch and sniff. In my local elementary school sticker-trading market, the oily one that changed colors were the blue-chip investments, but I always preferred the scratch and sniff.
@bowerbird I'm scared…what is he going to do with them?!? I can only think of something having to do with drugs that are like, absorbed through the skin and he has a skin-drug meth lab and like, it will explode if someone sneezes and the drug is called like, Jalapeno or Fantasy or Triple-Z or something. AHHHHHH!
(Note: I have never done drugs of any sort, not even pot/cigarettes. Perhaps this is why my imagination is so lurid surrounding illegal substances?)
@bowerbird: That's… huh. I'm really not sure what a 21 guy would want stickers for. The only thing I can think of is maybe he is referring to high quality vinyl decals, like maybe Fathead wall vinyl?
@bowerbird Mystery Solved! I asked my sister about this and she says he's been decorating his skis with stickers – probably because he thinks it's funny, hopefully not as an elaborate coverup for a dorm room sticker-dose meth lab.
@bowerbird I just found these great Ghostbusters stickers/decals!
They're from here: http://brandonbird.com/shopping.html. They don't have any other similarly hip stickers there, but there's always etsy. And, uh, Lisa Frank has an online store. Not that I've wish-shopped there or anything.
I was 14 circa 1997, so I think my list would have probably included a Sony Discman and a Mean People Suck patch to sew to my Jansport backpack. As you do.
@Valley Girl Also 14 in 1997, ALSO asked for a Sony Diskman and a forest green Jansport backpack.
@Valley Girl ooh! I got in trouble for having a patch like that!
@Valley Girl I was 13, and I, too, asked for a discman, and a two-disc Les Miserables cast recording to play in it obsessively. I also asked for Doc Martens, and one of those giant plastic rings from Claire's, but these were not allowed.
OH! I didn't do keychains, but I did put a giant British flag patch on my black army-surplus backpack, and write on it in white-out and silver glitter-pen, and try very, very hard to be a punk despite my lack of Docs.
@Valley Girl WHICH was to be worn slung over one shoulder, correct? Did you know kids don't do that anymore? Backpacks go on both shoulders now. Which I remember being the height of nerdy squaresville dorkdom.
On the up side, I do notice that teenagers are still writing incomprehensible-to-stupid-jerk-adults nonsense on their backbacks with Wite-Out, which I find tremendously comforting.
@BadWolf I wrote in White-Out ON my Doc Martens!
@BadWolf I was already a grownup in 1997 but I love this post so much for so many reasons! And… Les Miserables! Love.
@Valley Girl ZOMG JEALOUS. Like, I am 27, and WEARING docs, and cross-eyed with envy.
@Alice Prin WAIT WHAT NO. My left shoulder is permanently lower than my right, and that is how you can tell I was cool in middle school.
@BadWolf Legit. One time my mom ripped my backpack off me and dropped it on her bathroom scale to prove that my books were one-fourth of my body weight. It was a statement about 1.) how much homework I had and 2.) My probable future back problems. TOUCHE, DONA.
@Alice Prin Aww, buddy! Our poor young spines! My mom couldn't risk a move like that: I had so many books to carry because she sent me to a yeshiva with a double curriculum; I managed to parlay her concerns for my future posture into a WAY COOL cross-body messenger bag in 1999, even though she thought it made me look "sloppy."
@BadWolf In my family, we got the dreaded "raggamuffin." OUCH.
Yeah but seriously, how are you supposed to tell which kids are the cool ones now? Bieber haircuts?
@Valley Girl Insanity. Joining the ranks of the middle schoolers with Jansports, Sony Discman (with the Grease soundtrack, of course), and a multitude of awful keychains. "Mean People Suck" was definitely one of them, along with a peace sign, yin yang, and….and "ER" logo keychain? I was way into that show.
@reebs14 I was also 14 that year. I think that might have been the year that my sister got Monopoly and the full Derwent pencil set, which I HAD BEEN ASKING FOR for years.
Not that I'm still bitter.
My family has always been the kind that asks for hard copy lists of what you want for Christmas. And my mother being as Type A as she is has(yes, present tense) a red bradded folder that holds probably 30 pieces of notebook paper with every year's Christmas list for the whole family. I need to go over there and read the backlog because I bet it's awesome. I'm 100% positive that there are cut outs from Delias catalogs pasted onto my pages. I wonder what it looks like now that we're all away from home…I'm sure my mom still makes my dad write his wishes down in The List
@Wondajules I may or may not create a Christmas Gift Spreadsheet every year and shriek with glee when each and every line is highlighted in blue, which indicates "Obtained, wrapped, and ready to be given!"
@Wondajules I can't believe it took this long in the comment thread for someone to meantion Delia*s!!! OH em GEE, Delia*s was the epitome of cool in my 1997 world.
@Hellcat I may or may not have something similar, also color coded, with a column for marking "X" when everything is purchased, wrapped and shipped (if necessary).
IN MY DEFENSE: We have 3 nieces and 3 nephews, and I want to make sure everyone is even and that we haven't given them the same things 2 years in a row.
@Bebe Oh, don't you worry; you don't have to defend your list to me… or to anyone!
@Hellcat I actually adore the idea of a spreadsheet…however to my teeny bit crazy mother, using a computer to compile treasured things like gift lists would border on blasphemy(where's the handwriting? And the doodles?? I NEED THE DOODLES TO FRAME THEM AT A LATER DATE!). So I guess her Type A side is at a major conflict with her nostalgic/sentimental side every year in the twelfth month. I don't know. I have problems with the inner workings of her brain most times.
@wee_ramekin oh god, yes! Delia*s and Alloy. For a good 4-5 years. I never received a single item though because, "it's all synthetic and will make your skin break out in a rash and you won't wear it so I'm not buying it." Whatever. Just ruin my life. What is even the POINT of having The List if you won't buy me anything off The List?
@Wondajules I don't see why one couldn't do both… one for the jotting and brainstorming, which could later be transferred to the other for the getting down to business and the keeping track parts!
@Wondajules "Whatever, just ruin my life" was my response to my being too tall for the jeans from Delias at the time.
I THINK I really wanted a Playstation in 1997, and I also think I got it.
@Megan Patterson@facebook You have just reminded me! My christmas list in 1997 was:
EVERY SEGA SATURN JRPG IN EXISTENCE.
I think it would've been Shining the Holy Ark that year. I never completed it
I had totally forgotten about how "stuff" used to be a completely reasonable item to add to your gift list. Mickey stuff, cow stuff, Lisa Frank stuff. My gift lists would always have a couple American Girl items, a couple stuffs, and then I'd just write in, "Surprises."
I was 12 in 1997 and I got the Titanic soundtrack, which was kind of waste because I bypassed all that classical music for that one certain song that got some airplay back then. On the other hand, my sister, age 9, got the soundtrack to George of the Jungle, which is much more fun.
@andrea disaster UGH, that song! I refused to see Titanic when it came out, on the grounds that I was a huge nerd, and had read all about the discovery of the wreck before some baby-faced actor made it cool. I remember having a huge fight with another girl at the back of the school bus because I had tried to explain that "My Heart Will Go On" didn't even make sense. Like, there were almost fisticuffs, and I made her cry. I was so lame.
@BadWolf OMG, I was 12 in 1997 and I ALSO had similar nerd feelings about Titanic! I was just so above liking anything just because some cute boy was in it — I bet everyone I knew was so impressed with how mature I was. I did eventually see it in the theater, but only after it broke all the box office records so that I could be sure that my ticket didn't contribute to that. I was extremely popular in middle school, as you've probably gathered.
@BadWolf I was not so into Leo DiCaprio as oh, say, EVERY GIRL IN MY GRADE, but I will admit that I wanted to see Titanic because my parents said I wasn't allowed to. (Because of Kate Winslet's boobies. No, I'm not joking.)
@andrea disaster LOL. "My Heart Will Go On" was my jam in 1997-8 as an 8 year old. I loved that song so much and if the song came on the radio right when my mom got home from picking me up from elementary school, I would make her keep the car on until it finished. Even better was the super rare movie version, where the song had dialogue(!) from the movie in it.
But I got really into titanic before I heard about the movie because my 3rd grade lit book had a story about it, so I (being the obsessive person that I am) glommed everything I could find about Titanic. It was a culmination of my obsession to the see the movie, with my mom and grandma(cringe at the nude scenes and the jokes my mom made about it in the theatre). I also did not have a crush on Leo, but all the other girls did. Mainly because I knew there was no hope, as my mom pointed out when I told her of the other girls' pleas for Leo to wait for them.
One of my male friends at the time saw the 8 times because his mom was obsessed even more than me. He used to begin talk Monday mornings with "My mom made me see titanic again…."
@andrea disaster
UM I NEED TO TELL THE SADDEST STORY OF MY LIFE HERE.
I was an avid participant in my elementary school from kindergarten until grade four. When I reached fifth grade I suddenly decided that I was 2 kool for glee club and dropped out. Later that year, a certain movie about an unfortunate boat came out in theaters. That year Celine Dion – at the absolute pinnacle of her insane international fame – went on a world tour and stopped in San Jose (where I was living at the time). She was playing an insanely large, completely sold-out, total blockbuster concert at the gigantic stadium. For one of her numbers she needed a children's chorus to sing backup. Mind you this is mere months after Titanic was released – I'm pretty sure it was still the number 1 movie. GUESS WHICH GLEE CLUB SHE PICKED TO JOIN HER ON STAGE IN FRONT OF LIKE SIXTY FREAKING THOUSAND PEOPLE.
Not that I'm bitter about it.
@Diana Your stories are the best.
@Katie Scarlett THAT IS AMAZING that you waited to see Titanic so that you wouldn't contribute to box office stats!!!!!!!!! I love it.
Ugh the sad thing is I had Batty, Hoppity (didn't it come in three Easter colors? I had the green and pink), Nuts AND Lefty but I tore all the tags right off them. Also about 97 more beanie babies. Where are they now! I want to pile them all on my bed and play with them!
@Charlotte they're in my mom's basement i think ;P
bless this article for reminding me that most of the things I want are just pieces of garbage that I am momentarily, irrationally drawn to.
This makes me feel even older than Edith's article in the NYT did.
I was 9. I have almost no recollection of what I was interested in at that point, besides Watership Down. Maybe Pokemon cards? My brother and I almost ruined a family trip to visit my aunt in Hawaii sometime around then, so fervent was our need for jungle booster packs.
@figwiggin Oh, no, Pokemon cards didn't come out in the US until the next year. My point still stands, though. (Also, it frightens me somewhat how little I remember from that age. What were my passions? What was important to me, that seemed like it would be important to me forever?)
I was 14 in 1997, and I want to know why no one else here asked for a 1998 Hanson Calendar! I think I also asked for/got "Static and Silence" by The Sundays.
@Liina I was 16 in 1997, your comment reminded me that my secret santa at work (Wet Seal!) bought me a Nine Inch Nails calendar. I took the calendar portion off and had pictures of Trent Reznor all over my bedroom walls.
@Liina I DID I DID
@Liina OMG I *absolutely* wanted a 1998 Hanson calendar. I got one, too! Along with a Hanson T-shirt that is still in my closet back home….
@Liina I think that by 1998, my friends and I were all totally over Hanson! I have no idea why, because it's not like we were listening to anything cooler, but I do remember making fun of girls who were still really into them.
I did, however, ask for AND RECEIVE an *Nsync day planner for my 14th birthday.
oily stickers! rat kings! i love you, emma!
I got my 24-year-old brother a keychain this year. In my defense, it is a flashlight keychain that is a replica of the 10th Doctor's sonic screwdriver (I am running for Sister of the Year in 2011, and although I am his only sister it is still a hotly contested race).
@Nutmeg I got my BF some keychains too — two Tom Waits ones, so he can either choose the better option or… help restart the multiple keychain trend of yore! And I always get him stickers because his love for those has apparently never, ever wavered even though he is now 39.
Yes, I really did google "Kids Without Beanie Babies" to see if it was a real thing. *facepalm*
@Maxie – @ihatesomuch to me, it sounds like the name of a very sad and hilarious tumblr.
@Maxie – @ihatesomuch My mother is the acting president of KWBB, as she is a school nurse and gives all of my discarded bean toys to the children on their birthdays when they come to her office to give her questionably baked birthday confections. Apparently they get REALLY really excited and sometimes cry/throw up
@Maxie – @ihatesomuch There is/was a charity though that was real where you could donate all of your beanie babies to soldiers in Iraq for them to give to kids there. Who had, you know, lost their homes/families. So I'm sure the beanie babies really were a TON of comfort. (but then, kids everywhere, and Things, right? like not the most meaningful charity ever but also not evil)
I don't know if they are still around now and am too lazy to google it.
True story: my mom, in a Nice Mom moment of clarity, entered me into a raffle for the super-limited edition Princess Diana beanie baby, which I eventually won. Back in the day, that thing went for like…at least $1K! Which is a lot of cash if you are ten! But now it is worth nothing, which is good, because I think my parents threw all my beanie babies away (along with the rest of my stuff) when I went to college.
PS. Is a Princess Diana beanie baby not in incredibly poor taste? WHAT?
@24k What the hell must that look like — I can't picture it at all! Looking it up…
@Hellcat: I assume it comes packaged in a half crushed toy Mercedes.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get into this handbasket.
@Too Much Internet Well, you better move over then; I just let out a disappointed "Huh? Jerks!" when I saw a purple bear and not a blond lady in Beanie Baby form.
@Hellcat YEAH it's a purple bear, absolutely no likeness whatsoever. Still offensive, still worth no $$$
I am shocked and amazed I can tell you exactly what I asked for in 1997:
1. Aquarium by Aqua featuring their hit single "Barbie Girl"
2. Jelly Bellies (still love them to this day)
3. Slinky from Toy Story 1.
That's fantastic (life in plastic).
@beanie I just remembered the time in 1997 that my friend and I taught her two-year-old sister to sing "Barbie Girl" and dance around. It WAS fantastic.
@BadWolf I have that CD (free from a Miss USA pageant my dad worked for) and I love it unconditionally and unironically! The songs can be horrible and "Ken's" voice is creepy, but its part of the fun. Besides "My Oh My" is awesome.
My dad's friend was an editor of a beanie baby MAGAZINE back in the day, and 9-year-old me got to be interviewed about my favorite beanie baby and photographed holding him (Congo, the gorilla). I lied to the interviewer a lot and told everyone she must have misheard me. I must have a copy of that somewhere, they sent us like five dozen copies…
STICKER BOOKS. I totally forgot about them!
@Teffodee I just found my sticker book this weekend! My boyfriend was in the room when I found it, and while past boyfriends probably would have said, "oh, that's cool," and gone back to whatever they were doing current boyfriend LOOKED AT IT WITH ME. He's pretty awesome.
So, um, am I the only one who still has Beanie Babies in the bedroom of her childhood home? Just, like, 10 or 12 of them, displayed on a shelf. No idea what happened to the rest of them …. they may well be in my parent's attic.
@cherrispryte I still have mine! Every time I'd fly to see my parents, my dad would greet me in the airport with a Beanie Baby. Yes, this was happening well into my 30's, until I finally decided to move to the state they live in now. If I hadn't moved, he would probably STILL be greeting me with those little babies. So I have a few of my favorites on my dresser, because of the warm fuzzies and all that mushy stuff.
@cherrispryte I have one — just one though — in my current bedroom. It's a monkey named Bongo. A male just-friend gave it to me one Valentine's day in the mid-'90s because I was (newly, maybe?) single and he "didn't know if anyone would get [me] nothin'." Neither he nor I had any idea then that it was anything more than an ordinary, inexpensive, register-adjacent impulse buy!
WHOOPS! Correction: I have two. One is a little tuxedo cat named Cabaret that I actually bought for myself a few years ago because there it was, just sitting at eye level at a Walgreens mere days after my own 17-year-old tuxedo cat, Tim, passed away. Awww, man — teary, a little now. Oy, I'm lame.
@WastedPaper That is too adorable!!
@cherrispryte I admittedly still have a few, including Batty the Bat in an awesome cave habitat case thing with glow in the dark puffy paint that my late Grandfather made for me. I will keep it forever!
Stickers and keychains NEVER go away. My nine year old has so many keychains on her backpack, I feel like scoliosis is going to be an actual problem soon. She sounds like the circus is coming to town every time she walks into a room. She's got so many keychains, janitors and old-timey jail wardens are jealous! Is this thing on?
Oh, Beanie Babies – my great shame! Somewhere around 1997 I helped out a friend who was making an industrial for Allure magazine. One segment involved filming a bunch of kids in NJ playing dress-up and talking about the meaning of beauty. (I know.) My job was to a) buy the dress-up clothes at the Salvation Army and b) make gift bags for the little girls. The girls had been promised Beanie Babies in the gift bags – but I was in my mid-20’s and had no idea what Beanie Babies were, let alone that they were such a commodity.
I dutifully went to Toys R Us (where of course all the actual BBs had sold out long ago) and bought some generic bean-stuffed animals, thinking they were Beanie Babies. After all, they had beans in them! They were cute! Well, the film crew and I barely escaped with our lives when the girls (and their mothers) discovered my mistake. I remember actually running to get in the van. I'm sorry, little girls!
However, I still have a hilarious fake-Pucci caftan from the Salvation Army dress-up clothes, which I used to wear to parties every now and then. At least I knew the Pucci was a fake.
@Miss Violet: "The Best Time I Was Nearly Torn Limb from Limb For Presenting Bean Animals as Beanie Babies"
@Too Much Internet Oh man, you just made me laugh so hard. Thank you!
Oh man, I just flash backed and remembered recording Party of Five and then loaning it to my friends.
In 1997 I was 21… I think I may have wished for someone to pay my phone bill and a gift card for somewhere I could buy stuff for my apartment. Yay, grown ups!
I kind of want to start a sticker book now, though.
I was 7 in 1997. My Christmas list probably involved Spiceworld (on cassette! which I still have!), Beanie Babies, and platform sneakers (I reallyyy loved the Spice Girls.) And books! So many books! (Also Spice Girls books.)
Probably I got a lot of stuff that was "educational", which sucked but which I am really grateful for now.
@Two-Headed Girl I loved the Spice Girls, but in my class it was totally uncool to like them, so I was very covert about it. I remember walking, alone, to the ice cream truck after school, and buying the Spice Girl Lollipops that came with stickers inside, praying that this one would be Ginger. Now, I'm making up for it: I own a DVD of their videos, a tape of Spice World, and all their cds.
I was 14, and that was the year our house burned down so Christmas was a deceptively giant pile of "gifts" that were mostly replacements for various things that my mother wrapped up to make them seem festive. "Here's a … mixing bowl set to replace the one that got burnt! Thanks, Santa!" "Yaaay, socks!"
@MollyculeTheory Awwww x1000 My eyes are leaking. Love to your momma.
@MollyculeTheory That is both awesome and really sad. It kinda makes me check my privilege.
This list is absolutely perfect. I would also add:
1. Hanson's Middle of Nowhere album–as I am going to marry Zac (whose full name is Zachary Walker Hanson and whose favorite color is blue, according to Tiger Beat Magazine) and live on his tour bus, I should be able to recite ad nauseum any of the lyrics he & his dreamy brothers wrote.
2. The newest Animorph book. I need to be well-informed when the Andalites finally come to help Jake, Cassie et al. defeat the vile Yeerks!
3. A Trapper-Keeper. I don't think any explanations are necessary.
@baseball and mango ice cream oh my god animorphs. DUH! HOW COULD I FORGET?! I definitely had every single book, plus the two special alien planet books.
Although, I guess I didn't have every single book since I have no idea how/if the series ended!
@redheadedandcrazy omg I'm actually in the process of rereading the ones I have (which does not include The One Where They Defeat Yeerks With Oatmeal, a grievous oversight on my part) and I'd forgotten how *dark* the last ten or so books are. But the humor still translates to my 24-year-old self. If you want a blast from the past, I highly recommend getting your hands on them. Plus they take like, less than an hour to read.
@baseball and mango ice cream Okay, here is my list! Along with pokemon yellow, I'm sure. I was shocked recently to find out Hanson is still out there, making music, and they didn't just disappear with the nineties.
i'm so glad you reminded me of my rat-king of key-chains.
1. I have had more than one dream featuring Paul Reiser and myself having a grand ol' time yukking it up about the good old days of television. I imagine he and I would be great friends.
2. SAILOR MOON. I was probably a little too old to like it as much as I did, but as I was a young 13 or so in 1997, I will let it slide. Fun fact: Sailor Jupiter and I share the SAME BIRTHDAY. Also, we both have brown hair. I felt like we had an uber connection because she wore plastic-balled hair elastics and SO DID I.
3. My Christmas list in 1997 looked something like this: Sony Discman, Happy Holidays Barbie 1997(I said young 13, right?), cheap socks with cartoon characters on them that I could mix and match, and the No Doubt Tragic Kingdom album.
@cocokins and when I say album, I really mean CD.
@cocokins and DAMN, did I wear that CD out! I listened to that thing every day after I did my homework, with my lava lamp on and my headphones blaring, while I melted crayons with my desk lamp.
@cocokins I am having a really hard time remembering if I got Tragic Kingdom for that Christmas or if I already had it by Christmas time. I don't have it any more, but I did consider buying it on vinyl when I saw it at Hot Topic (!!!) a couple years ago!
@cocokins YES NO DOUBT. DANCING AND DANCING AND DANCING and knowing all the words to 'Sunday Morning.' Reviving that could warrant a work-break.
@cocokins @truelove I thought I knew you! *Whoooaaaooohh*
The update on the gifts reads like the last few minutes of a Behind the Music episode.
I think that year for Christmas I got a pair of Adidas where the stripes were metallic blue green and a coffee table book about World War II because I loved reading about World War II.
At least your crush was Paul Reiser. I had a David Letterman crush which involved some very unattractive khakis.
What about pogs. We had so many pogs. (Though, I think that was earlier.) Also, things from "The Limited: Too!" Remember? Which brings us back to the body sprays…
In 1997 I was aged 11 and all I wanted were Gelly Roll brand gel ink pens in as many colors as possible, particularly metallic, and an Old Navy performance fleece. That may also have been the year I wanted an Old Navy fanny pack, which the girls at my middle school slung over their shoulders and used as purses/pencil bags.
@Cossette729 Oh my god, I loooooved gel pens. My mom bought me a set of like a hundred for one of my birthdays. And then I would chew on the ends while writing and they would inevitably explode in my mouth
I have a pink slip of paper on which is written my Christmas list from 1985, when I was 15. It includes two Benetton sweaters, a Benetton rugby shirt, pegged Guess jeans with zippers at the ankles, and — my favorite — Arcadia's 'So Red the Rose." (Tell me who was in Arcadia without Googling, and I'll buy you a Negroni at the next meetup.)
How is everyone forgetting about Nano/Giga Pets?!? I was 10 at the time, and that overpriced piece of plastic and beeping was precisely what I needed to appear cool and not poor. "Why no, my mom doesn't have food stamps. You must be mistaken. Look at my digital dinosaur. Look how it eats!"
@Harper Lee Haynes@facebook Sad story. I had been DYINNGGG for a nanobaby. Finally I convinced my mom to get one for me from Spencer's in the mall. Then, on the way to school, I was playing with my new Nanobaby in the car and I got motion sickness and vomited on it and it broke D:
@Harper Lee Haynes@facebook I would leave mine at home with my mum for care as they were banned from school and when I'd come home my Nanodog would have done fourteen poos all over the screen and be crying in the corner. Thankfully she was better at looking after children.
I created an account solely so that I could share all about how I still own most of Buffy Season 2 on VHS taped off of tv with original WB commercials, and how I also had the Buffy Season 3 Christmas episode, "Amends" (where Angel goes all crazy and wants to die and waits for the sun to come up and Buffy's crying and begging him to get inside and then it snows, miraculously, and he's saved), except I lent it to my friend and she DROPPED HER BACKPACK (which I'm sure she was wearing on one shoulder) ON IT and crushed it, which crushed *me*. Seriously, it was at least a month before I stopped bringing it up every time we talked.
Of course, that was 1998.
@Lexa Lane Oh man, I have to comment on this because I have every single episode from seasons 2 through 5 (my high school years) recorded on VHS because I totally knew I would want to watch them again (I failed to record season 1 since I didn't know I loved it back then but I still watched it), but I would pause recording during commercials to save valuable tape time. I went to college after season 5 and stopped taping since I had to share the TV and VCR with my roommate. They are all in parents' basement and I really want to find them now even though I now own the complete series on DVD.
@Lexa Lane Me too! At least, I hope I still have them somewhere. I think it's primarily Season 3, but with some Season 2 mixed in.
This beanie baby receiving kid appreciates your donation, however indirectly– when I was in the hospital at age 8, I got a beanie baby from some guy doing his Bar Mitzvah project, and honestly it made those 4 hell days a little bit easier. =)
I got a Nintendo 64 for my birthday in 1997 (I turned 10). It came with Star Fox 64. This obviously made 1997 the best year ever. Sadly I did not own GoldenEye 007 until recently; I played it at my cousins' house, but presumably my parents were trying not to enable my burgeoning fondness for things that blow up by buying me my own copy.
Also, I still have buttloads of episodes of Law & Order that I taped off TNT in high school and occasionally rewatch in my combination VCR/DVD player on my 20" flatscreen CRT. It's still 2005 up in this hizzy.
I would also like to add everything from the dELiA*s catalogue.
My friend just met a cutest girl on –CasualLoving dot c'0m–. It's where for men and women looking for intimate encounters.
It's a nice place for people who wanna start a short-term relationship….no bounds or extremes in front of true love.