Following on from the £400 iPad for a 10 yr old thread - what did you all get as children as your 'main presents'?
For me - a new bike every three years. If I outgrew it in between I had to scavenge from the tip and make one up myself.
One year I got a big train set to share with my brother (I think that might have been the year my gran died so dad had come into a little bit of money) and apart from that it was things like toy guns, Action Men, microscopes etc.
invariably something mountain bike related. a giro supermoto, spds, spd shoes, new forks, x-lite bar ends, xt rear mech all spring to mind for various pressies!
All on different years, but these are the memorable ones, I guess the Spectrum at £125 back in 1983 ish was the equivalent of an iPad.
Big Trak
ZX Spectrum (shared with brother)
Train Set
Bike (only remember getting one actually)
Sheath Knife
U2 Under a Blood Red Sky Video
Badly knitted itchy jumper from my aunt
Action Man stuff, in particular a battery powered machine gun, although I'm still a bit bitter I never got a Scorpion Tank
The good old days - toys without screens or batteries. Loved em all too!
Plus scalextric stuff, model railway bits etc.
ThePurist - I got a Super Flight Deck as a main present one year too 
Oranges, lots of them.
Bestest Christmas ever my parents organised all my grandparents etc & I went from no scalextrics to over 100 bits of track & 10 cars (all 2nd hand) in 1 day... I was in heaven.
I did have to get Mum to stop my Dad & Grandfather to stop playing it when I went to bed though
Usually a hand-me-down bike that my brother had grown out of.
And some records to play on my Dansette. I can remember most Christmases for the record I got and played over and over on Christmas day. (eg. 1979: Joy Division - Transmission; 1980: The Clash - London Calling b/w Armagiddeon Time)
Johnny 7 OMA:
Kick ass as they say
I grew up in the States so most of my life was outdoors, it was very rare to get indoor prezzies, but those I did get were sent over from my dear old Grandpa..
This was my fave of all time
He sent me this:
He also sent me this (but I think my Mum wanted it really:
I was in "little league" so had lots of Baseball stuff, as it all woreout during the season:
My Dad, bless him, got this sent over from the UK, it was the best bike I ever owned, died a death when the frame broke and kept breaking around the rear stays.. (oh how the same things keep happening all these years later eh!)
Rocketman - how could I forget that! There's home movies of me terrorising my great grannies with one of them on Xmas day.
a memorable one would have been our zx spectrum (with a plug in tape deck, remember them, and the noise they made when loading a game) and an atari. Forgot what came first, these were to be shared with my older brother!
got a manual typewriter one year too.
barbie bits and bobs, or possibly her cheaper cousin cindy.
and my fave red raleigh bike, with a dynamo light. Great when stopping at night and it went out 
Highlights would be..
A torch
A vice
Quite a few years of nothing :0(
We was poor........
I managed a £900 stumpjumper using christmas and birthday and about £400 of my own money (paper round and asking for money as presents etc) when i was about 13. best present ever
(This vintage)
One of my most memorable Christmas pressies was a sledge. It snowed that year (1986, I think) and we spent 3 days sledging at Horsenden Hill.
Same year, I also got a r/c Lamborghini Countach in the days of cars that went forwards or turn in reverse and a massive articulated car thing with 16-wheels; a bit like a wheeled centipede.
Aaarrrghhh! Here it is....mad masher.
http://scheisskerl.blogspot.com/2010/10/tomy-mad-masher-monster-machine.html
One Christmas I kept on & on about a radio controlled car from Tandy. It was a dune buggy called Turbo Fox. I got it and it was great, but very fragile. It was replaced by the shop about 3 times for just randomly breaking down & they eventually swapped it for a really slow 4x4 thing.
Found it:
Best Christmas present in the world EVER!!! One of these frames
Then built up by me with the proceeds from various paper rounds, holiday jobs. I wish I still had it 
Most memorable ones:
Big Track
Spectrum +2
Countless Lego kits
Grifter (the bike not the choccy bar)
Chipper (like a chopper but not)
Most of the big presents were joint birthday ones.
when I was 6 or 7 my dad bought me a motorcycle helmet and a tiny plastic motor bike toy. I was upset and threw a tantrum as I thought I was getting a motorbike. I calmed down and I was taken outside to play in the 2ft of snow that had fallen and stumbled upon an unopened big present from Santa.
He'd sent me a brand new 50cc Suzuki Quadbike with a full tank of petrol!!
unfortunately I had to wait until the new year when the snow melted to actually ride it for the first time. I was very very happy ....
until I crashed for the first time
tangerines, coal, new thrupence, lou macari replica kit.
my all-time best xmas present was one of these.. god i loved that thing!
Reading these types of threads makes me really sad on two counts. Firstly what a materialistic git I am and secondly that my parents were tight fisted, lying barstewards.
Rocketman - how could I forget that! There's home movies of me terrorising my great grannies with one of them on Xmas day.
I was particularly fond of the removable hand gun
I wish I could remember that far back!
Action man GI joe probably
We did have a ZX spectrum so that was probably a joint pressie with my brother
Oh and a KX80... That was a good year! 
Most expensive: scelectric and a huge trainset my dad built, looking back they may have been presents for him as much as me! :p
Cheepest (must have been a bad year) : two postcard sized hand drawn sketchs of Swallow/Amazon from Dad, out of all the presents I think it's probably the only one that I've still got/appreciate as it's on the bedroom wall.
Well you can harp back Don Simon, think that we (well I) was well catered for in the prezzie dept, but I never saw my Dad for 4mths at a time, then only for 2 weeks where he'd rant and rage at "just being at home doing nothing" Inevitably this would end up in angsty frustrations in the family and guess what?? I'd fek off outside and play on my toys..
Father substitute they were not.
can-uk - that is a lovely looking bike - so rideable
ever saw my Dad for 4mths at a time, then only for 2 weeks where he'd rant and rage at
Not very much at all, if anything worthy of a mention. My mum would make a small effort. More out of guilt than anything.
This year, my daughter is getting a laptop, a TV, new electric bass guitar and amp and some little extra items that she likes.
She's not getting the up dragging that I was subject to and hell, she LOVES me.
Blimey. My birthday is at Christmas so I tended to get combined presents.
The ones that I remember most are…
Computers 1981 & 1982
Raleigh Tomahawk 1977
from Cooksons, still my LBS 34 years later!
Action Man helicopter pilot 1978 – 10th birthday
Lima locomotives and rolling stock 1978
Airfix Sunderland flying boat 1980 (Airfix Christmas. I got 20+ models and all of the necessary paint. I was high until March.)
This year I’m getting
And some bike clothing and some M&S vouchers.
Most memorable gifts:
Spectrum 48k
Commodore 64
Amiga 500
Space Crusade
Hero Quest
^ All shared with my brother. And just for me...
Cribsy the Popple. I was absolutely inseperable from her, she still lives on top of my drawers now!
Trivial Pursuit
Scrabble
My Little Pony Baby Bonnet School of Dance
Jem Glitter and Gold
Spirograph
Fashion Wheel
Awesome lamb and squirrel cuddly toys. Only my brother (who is 4 years older than me) threw a tantrum. My parents thought he'd be too old for cuddly toys, so they hadn't got him any for that Christmas. He was really upset, so I gave him the squirrel.
A smack in the marf and sent to bed early for even daring to ask if I had any presents. 
If I was lucky....
Cribsy the Popple
Like, WTF...?
If we're doing pictures:
shame its b+w, couldn't get a colour one to work
EDIT: Nostalgia alert!
God I loved that bike, Got it probably in 1982 (it was an 81 model). Big wheel conversion and 100cc block in '83. Raced it till 84 when unfortunately had to stop cos dad passed away.
Kept it till I was 17 in (87) then whacked a front hub mounted speedo and 6v lights on- road legal! It died when the front wheel came off (due to the bodged on speedo) and I buried it in the front of a parked capri.
Life was simpler then.
Computers featured heavily for me too.
zx81
spectrum
amstrad something or other
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