A GenX Christmas Story

Did anyone else get underwear for Christmas or was that just me

They make Underoos for adults now too because GenX adulting is fun

There are a lot of things about my childhood I had no idea were typical for the time, at least for American kids. Things that I thought made my family weird that I’ve since learned were heaped upon millions of other GenXers, much to my amazed amusement. One of those things that I thought only my oddball family did was something I discovered every Christmas morning as a child: a stocking stuffed with apples and oranges.

Sure, looking back I should’ve been relieved it was never coal, but what little kid gets excited for fresh fruit they eat all year anyway? When I thought it was Santa Claus’s doing, I was extra disappointed that I didn’t find whatever knick-knack I’d asked for on his stupid lap at the mall, but once I realized Santa wasn’t real and it was my mom and stepfather stuffing the oversized socks, I chalked it up to our family being too poor for anything more than produce. It’s not like I was hard to please or spoiled—I would’ve been thrilled to find Fruit Roll-Ups instead, or anything else my mom refused to buy for us back then. I now know fruit-stuffed stockings was a tradition among earlier generations that Boomers had continued with us, because why shouldn’t we suffer the same disappointment they did?

After reading this piece on The Kitchn I declare I was indeed too spoiled to appreciate fresh fruit

Christmas for us GenXers was exciting, in large part because we had the COOLEST TOYS. In the ‘70s we got the Big Wheel and Sit’n Spin, and action figures like The Bionic Man and The Incredible Hulk. Then after the wild success of Star Wars merch and action figures in ‘77, movie/TV studios and toy companies made mucho bucks in wedded bliss, creating many of our most beloved Christmas gifts for decades to come. In the ‘80s we got The Care Bears, The Smurfs, He-Man and She-Ra, Transformers, Atari, My Little Pony, Lite Brite, Rubik’s Cube, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Cabbage Patch Kids, Garbage Pail Kids…I could go on forever.

Remember when we could spin around like crazy and not get dizzy? Good times

It’s not that we were the first generation to have fun toys but let’s be real, we’ve all seen A Christmas Story; Boomer kids only got BB rifles. Just kidding, they also got Betsy Wetsy dolls, the original Barbie, and… Howdy Doody.

Earlier generations had an unhealthy obsession with puppets, ventriloquism, and cowboys

Christmas gifts in the ‘80s often included novelty items “As Seen On TV!” I remember being impressed by the commercials for things that seemed so high-tech. “Clap on, clap off, The Clapper!” Like, what—you can just clap twice to turn off the lights? No more having to climb out of my cozy bed to flip the light switch off and run back in the dark to get under the covers before the goblins get me? Brilliant! Nobody in my family ever got a Clapper though, nor a ch-ch-ch Chia Pet. At the time, I only recall the animal Chia Pets, but later you could get one in a variety of pop culture icons, like Weird Al, Bob Ross, and Estelle Getty.

I’m partial to the hedgehog and Baby Yoda myself

When I close my eyes and think of my childhood Christmases, I can hear “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” playing while we eat popcorn balls, peanut brittle, and an entire box of Turtles, which someone always gifted my stepfather whose nickname was Turtle. One year he got those chocolate covered cherry cordials instead and I was like “Are we being punished?” Every year, someone also received a tin of those Danish butter cookies. I had no idea until a few years ago that it wasn’t just my weirdo family that tricked us kids by turning the empty cookie tin into a sewing kit.

This Tik Tok dad gets it. Parenting done right!

When we didn’t spend Christmas Eve at Turtle’s parents’ house, my dad would pick me and my brother up to spend it at my grandmother’s house. My dad’s mom had a chair with 3 creepy old dolls sitting on it, situated right by the stairwell we had to climb to get to the guest room we slept in. Terrified of the dolls, my brother and I would mentally prepare ourselves before dashing up the steps in lightning speed, whizzing by the dolls before they could get us. Scary porcelain dolls aside, we adored spending time at her place, especially because our aunt was a teenager who still lived at home. Being closer in age meant our aunt felt more like a cousin. Christmas of ‘82 or ‘83, an argument broke out between my dad and his teen sister because they annoyed each other, literally almost becoming a fistfight before my grandma stepped in to pull them apart. That’s as close to a Jerry Springer episode my family’s ever gotten.

Props to my brother for getting me the most memorable Christmas gifts. He was a teenager with his first job so he went nuts buying the family gifts with his first paychecks. One year, circa ‘87, he got me the Swatch watch I’d been coveting. Then another year he got me a synthesizer! It’s too bad I had zero musical talent otherwise I could’ve been writing chart-topping hits with that iconic ‘80s synth sound.

When Ugly Christmas Sweater parties became a thing, I was tickled to see our culture finally acknowledge out loud that those garish abominations are a joke. People weren’t wearing them satirically in the ‘80s—they thought the sweaters with the giant Rudolph face were stylish to the max.

Now here’s a Christmas sweater I can get behind…but only if it costs $2