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My Favorite Christmas Gifts As A Kid in the 80s & 90s

[This is another Christmas article that I am publishing late. My apologies]


When I was a kid, Christmas was a lot different than it is now. Times were different and in my humble opinion, better. Maybe it's just because I was a kid and we often view things differently when we're younger. I was just reading over some of the other articles on this website and noticed that someone had made a post about retro Christmas gifts. It got me thinking about some of my favorite gifts that I received when I was a kid, in the mid to late 80s and throughout the 90s. 


Probably, the most memorable gift that I remember receiving is the Barbie Dream House. My parents spent forever putting it together, to surprise me on Christmas morning, and I remember it being the most gigantic thing I'd ever seen. I spent countless hours playing with that thing and found multiple uses for playing with it. Needless to say, Ninja Turtles and other action figures, also found their way into the Barbie Dream House, haha.


Ghostbusters toys. Enough said. Who could not love these things?! Oddly enough, one that I remembered playing with the most is the toilet toy. Not sure why, but it stands out in my mind. I wish that I still had all of the toys from my childhood, but most were destroyed in a fire.



Oh, the days of the Atari in comparison to the video gaming technology we have today. I'm not sure which version that I owned, but I remember this being the first gaming system that I ever played. 


I'm placing both of these in the same category, because in the early 90s, I went through a phase in which I thought that I was a complete and total rock star. My parents bought me my first electronic drum set and a Yamaha portable keyboard. My dad would stay up during the night and we would create songs together and record them onto cassettes. I'd give anything to know where these are at now, because it would provide some quality entertainment. 

In 4th grade, I had such a big head that I went to my class and signed up for the school talent show. The teacher, knowing that I didn't really know what I was doing, told me to get up in front of the entire class and play a song, to prove that I was worthy of being in the talent show. Needless to say, it didn't go so well. I'll never forget that day or how much I despised that teacher afterword. Ha.


Moon Shoes. As cool as these things were, they were actually quite dangerous. I'll explain. When I was a kid, I thought that I was practically indestructible. I got the great idea to strap these babies on and jump off of the giant edge of my grandmother's front porch. What I expected is that I would bounce to the moon. What ended up happening is that it caused some serious pain in my legs from the impact. Not a fun time, haha.

These were a few of my favorite Christmas gifts that I received as a kid, what were some of your favorites that you can remember? 
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CDbException

CDbException

CDbCommand failed to execute the SQL statement: SQLSTATE[01000]: Warning: 1265 Data truncated for column 'rj_classics' at row 1. The SQL statement executed was: UPDATE `articles` SET `id`=:yp0, `posted_by`=:yp1, `title`=:yp2, `content`=:yp3, `icon`=:yp4, `column`=:yp5, `type`=:yp6, `featured`=:yp7, `contest_winner`=:yp8, `official`=:yp9, `smurf`=:yp10, `posted_on`=:yp11, `status`=:yp12, `category`=:yp13, `action_on`=:yp14, `edited`=:yp15, `reads`=:yp16, `retro_rating`=:yp17, `favorited`=:yp18, `theme`=:yp19, `colorcode`=:yp20, `show_in_header`=:yp21, `approved_on`=:yp22, `rj_classics`=:yp23, `reviews`=:yp24, `review`=:yp25 WHERE `articles`.`id`=887

/home/ghostofvapor/public_html/yii/framework/db/CDbCommand.php(354)

342             return $n;
343         }
344         catch(Exception $e)
345         {
346             if($this->_connection->enableProfiling)
347                 Yii::endProfile('system.db.CDbCommand.execute('.$this->getText().$par.')','system.db.CDbCommand.execute');
348             $errorInfo = $e instanceof PDOException ? $e->errorInfo : null;
349             $message = $e->getMessage();
350             Yii::log(Yii::t('yii','CDbCommand::execute() failed: {error}. The SQL statement executed was: {sql}.',
351                 array('{error}'=>$message, '{sql}'=>$this->getText().$par)),CLogger::LEVEL_ERROR,'system.db.CDbCommand');
352             if(YII_DEBUG)
353                 $message .= '. The SQL statement executed was: '.$this->getText().$par;
354             throw new CDbException(Yii::t('yii','CDbCommand failed to execute the SQL statement: {error}',
355                 array('{error}'=>$message)),(int)$e->getCode(),$errorInfo);
356         }
357     }
358 
359     /**
360      * Executes the SQL statement and returns query result.
361      * This method is for executing an SQL query that returns result set.
362      * @param array $params input parameters (name=>value) for the SQL execution. This is an alternative
363      * to {@link bindParam} and {@link bindValue}. If you have multiple input parameters, passing
364      * them in this way can improve the performance. Note that if you pass parameters in this way,
365      * you cannot bind parameters or values using {@link bindParam} or {@link bindValue}, and vice versa.
366      * binding methods and  the input parameters this way can improve the performance.

Stack Trace

#2
+
 /home/ghostofvapor/public_html/protected/controllers/SiteController.php(1262): CActiveRecord->update()
1257                 $ifFavorited = $ifAction = 0;
1258             }
1259 
1260             $this->render('article', array('model' => $model, 'article' => $article, 'postedBy' => $postedBy, 'comments' => $comments, 'commentCount' => $commentCount, 'ifFavorited' => $ifFavorited, 'ifAction' => $ifAction, 'allArticles' => $allArticles, 'pages' => $pages));
1261             $article->reads += 1;
1262             $article->update();
1263         } else {
1264             $this->redirect(Yii::app()->createUrl('site/error', array('code' => 404, 'message' => 'This page was not found.')));
1265             exit();
1266         }
1267     }
#15
+
 /home/ghostofvapor/public_html/index.php(16): CApplication->run()
11 defined('YII_DEBUG') or define('YII_DEBUG',true);
12 // specify how many levels of call stack should be shown in each log message
13 defined('YII_TRACE_LEVEL') or define('YII_TRACE_LEVEL',3);
14 
15 require_once($yii);
16 Yii::createWebApplication($config)->run();
2026-04-11 20:57:56 Apache Yii Framework/1.1.11