Holly, Jolly Holiday Post, Week 1: What Was Your Favorite Gift as a Child?

I've decided to help myself get in the holiday spirit by focusing on the good things about Christmas (or whatever you prefer to call it), those special memories and fun things I always try and squeeze in. After all, don't we have enough doom and gloom right now?

Like I did back on Halloween, I'm going to post at least 1 weekly item about the holiday, and I plan to keep it light and positive. I hope you'll all share your own stories and thoughts. Check out the sidebar to the right as well since I'll be adding some fun polls--like today's: Do you prefer white Christmas lights or the multicolored ones?

My Favorite Christmas Gift
This is difficult since I was a pretty good kid and Santa seemed to like me. Actually, my Mom rocked. She always came through on Christmas. My dad did, too, of course. He provided the cash, and Mom went shopping. She then played Santa while my Dad slept.

But my favorite gift? I guess I would pick 2 things, mostly because of how overjoyed I remember being when I spotted these gifts under the tree the next morning.

1. A train set with a locomotive that actually made real smoke! It came with a car that carried "gold" (yellow plastic beads), which you could load and unload.
2. ABBA's greatest hits album!
   

Ok, stop laughing. You have no idea how excited I was to get that ABBA album! And I played the hell out of it. Was there ever any doubt that I was gay?

The train set was a wonderful surprise, too. After Christmas, I moved it into my brother's old bedroom and added houses, trees and more train stuff over time. My friends and I had lots of fun with that. Which is weird really, because I wasn't all that into trains. Maybe I wanted one because my best friend had a train, but regardless, I had more fun with it than I ever expected.

So what were your favorite Christmas gifts? And if you didn't celebrate Christmas, then just share a favorite gift you received on your birthday or another holiday.