The Sears Catalog Used to Be Christmas Before Christmas.

That thick, heavy book was a shared dream for the whole town, a common language of wanting that we have since traded for a million separate internet browser windows.

News for the America we remember

The mailman, Mr. Peterson, knew the importance of what he carried. Around the middle of October, our new Sears Christmas Wish Book would arrive. It wasn't just stuffed in the mailbox with the bills and the letters from Aunt Carol. He would walk it right up to our front door. He’d give the screen a little knock and hand it directly to my mother. It was thick, heavy, and smelled like fresh ink and possibility. It felt like something important, because it was.

My mother would place it on the kitchen table, right next to the floral centerpiece that was never moved for any other reason. That was the signal. My brother, Jim, and I would drop whatever we were doing and come running. For the first hour, we were not allowed to touch it. We could only look over her shoulder as she flipped through the pages of women’s coats and sensible shoes.

When she was done, the fight began. Jim was older, so he always got first dibs. He would take it to his room with a ballpoint pen. I would sit outside his door, listening to the crinkle of the pages. I could picture him frantically circling the G.I. Joe with the Kung Fu Grip and the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle. By the time he was done, the first hundred pages were a mess of blue ink and dog-eared corners.

Then it was my turn. I’d take the book and a different colored pen. I went straight for the electric trains. The Lionel sets took up whole pages, with engines puffing real smoke and cabooses with little lights in them. I circled the Santa Fe Super Chief so many times the paper started to get thin. I wanted that train more than anything. I’d move on to the chemistry sets and the model airplanes. We all circled things we knew we’d never get. It was part of the ritual.

Even my father would take a look. After dinner, he’d sit in his armchair with the catalog on his lap. He skipped right past the toys. He went straight to the back, to the Craftsman tools section. He’d study the socket wrench sets and the new power drills. He never circled a thing. He’d just grunt a little, as if to say, “Well, look at that.” The whole family had its section. It was our book.

In those days, Christmas didn’t just show up. It announced itself with that catalog. We spent two solid months dreaming about what might be under the tree. The waiting was part of the gift. The anticipation was an energy you could feel all over town. My friend Dave wanted a telescope on page 412. My sister, Sally, wanted a doll that cried real tears. We all knew because we were all looking at the same book.

Times Have Changed
My grandkids do their Christmas lists now on a tablet.

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