Wishbook Web - Christmas Catalogs from the Past

http://www.wishbookweb.com/

I wish they had the ones from Sears in the 60's. For those of you too young - there was a real sense of ritual and excitement to these things, much like the childhood memories evoked in Sheppard's Christmas Story. They'd be dropped off on your front doorstep around the second or third week of October. As far as we were concerned, that was the official start to the Christmas greed-fest. Within 72 hours the whole catalog would be memorized, underlined, bookmarked, and cross referenced. A merciless 24-hour-a-day lobbying effort would be directed at the parents, backed by vague threats and allusions to blackmail and extortion, only ending on Christmas morning with the inevitable sack of coal and stack of switches....