The gifts that Santa forgot
Dear Santa,
It's October, and a lot of people will be thinking that it's too early to be thinking about Christmas. Not me. I'm always thinking about Christmas. Where Eagles Dare, tins of Quality Street, watching the tinsel spin around the room after a gallon of eggnog... you know the kind of thing. Who wouldn't want that every day? Roy Wood was fucking well right. And besides, I've been down the Co-op. It's fucking well full of the shit. After Eights... Roses... Turkish Delight... Matchmakers... you know, all those things with which we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and our eventual path to eternal life.
Anyway, I'm rambling a bit. Look, I write to you every year, and every year I have one, very simple request. Bring me a fucking Scalextric. I don't ask for much. Really, I don't. Sure, I'm 35 years old and supposedly nowadays I'm meant to be getting grown-up presents, like Drakkar Noir, or hygienic nasal clippers, or a pair of bloody novelty socks that have got lights on the side and play Jingle Fucking Bells or We Wish You A Merry Cunting Christmas, about ten times, before you stick them in the wash or smash them with a toffee hammer after a couple of cans of McEwan's on Boxing Day. I know that's what I am meant to ask you for, nowadays.
But I want a fucking Scalextric.
Don't fuck around with some sort of generic plastic model racing cars on a track, either. Oh no. My grandparents tried that back in 1983, and they soon found out just how wrong they could be. It's a fucking Scalextric or nothing, all right? With decent cars. Formula One cars, or banger racers, or something. Don't fuck about. Just give me the fucking Scalextric. All right?
I feel that, on this occasion, my tone may have strayed somewhat from my normal friendly words of pleading, and this is a lapse for which I can only apologise. On the other hand, if you'd fucking well brought me a fucking Scalextric, I wouldn't have to be so nasty, would I? I'd have my Scalextric, and I'd be happy, and I'd just be asking for other things, like the bloody Dunlop Bridge, or a grandstand full of shit looking spectators that you have to spend hours painting with Humbrol, which ends up running onto the newspaper, and then it gets stuck and you rip it off, and then the paint comes off with it, and you start crying and throw the whole lot against the wall, and it stains, and you cry even more at the hopelessness of it all, and... I appear to have wandered from my main point. But you get the general idea.
Much love and kisses at this special time of year. And yes, I have been a good boy this year. Well, apart from that. But could you blame me?
Love,
Anton Vowl.
For some of us it was the Scalextric; for others, the Star Wars figures or the Mr Frosty. Funnily enough I did have the Mr Frosty, and he was ruddy brilliant! But I know that must be a cold steel knife to the heart for those of you who didn't get one. I know how much it must hurt. Well, let's see this as some kind of group therapy for us all. Is there something that Santa never brought you, which you still haven't got, all these years later as a grown-up? Do you flick through the kids' section of the Argos catalogue with a wistful sigh and a tear in your eye? If so, confess it below, and perhaps through sharing the pain we can get through all of this.
No related posts.
Buy my book, it’s great
Switch site
Donate
Recent Posts
- Cheerio, cheerio, cheerio…
- Children died
- The letters you never get around to sending
- Applying again
- I just sent Robin round – 2
Most Commented On
Recent Comments
- Iain on Applying again
- Roger on The letters you never get around to sending
- Dave Hodgkinson on The letters you never get around to sending
- droid on The letters you never get around to sending
- Rogue_Leader on The letters you never get around to sending
About Me
Hello. I'm a Bristol-based writer and soon-to-be-redundant journalist. You can read more about me and the Enemies site here, or follow me on Twitter. Email me if you like - antonvowl at live dot co dot uk
If you're struggling to read the site please use the drop down box below to increase the text size.
October 21st, 2010 - 13:35
I always wanted one – and a Dukla Prague away kit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na12OyJEgJ8.
Never got either
October 21st, 2010 - 13:47
Transformers.
When I turned thirty I started treating myself to the odd one. I had about dozen before I got over it.
October 21st, 2010 - 13:47
I wanted a chemistry set but I never received one. My niece wanted one for her birthday and she got it, parental objections be damned! I had a Mr Frosty and it was marvellous.
October 22nd, 2010 - 08:26
Ooh, me too ! I ended up getting a ‘U’ grade in my Chemistry O-level and feel it was because I never got the chance to play with a chemistry kit.
I did get a proper Sindy though, with moveable ballerina feet.
October 21st, 2010 - 13:48
I had BigTrak. Suck on that.
October 21st, 2010 - 13:52
Bastardo! As you well know, I envied a BigTrak for years.
October 21st, 2010 - 13:48
Two years ago I bought myself the Mr Frosty I spent a childhood wanting. Being an adult sometimes fucking rules!
P.S. I am also 35 years old.
October 21st, 2010 - 13:49
You fucking bastard. At nearly 38, I’m STILL waiting for my Mr Frosty. I knew at the age of 5 or 6 that Mr Frosty would make my life complete and I still believe that now. I’m very glad that my parents were right-on, anti-consumerist lefties, yaddayaddayadda, but they could have given up their principles JUST ONCE. After all, my little brother got a fucking AT-AT.
We need some sort of therapy group. You have stirred deep feelings that I have struggled with my entire life. My Mum also refused to get me a peach off-the-shoulder batwing jumper for my 13th birthday and I’ve never got over that either.
October 21st, 2010 - 13:55
I always wanted Scalextric, mainly because my big bruv had suitcases full of the 60′s stuff that I wasn’t allowed to touch.
I had to make do with Race n’ Chase (u-turns and flipping bridge) which was good fun, but not as hardcore as the real thing.
Even though I’m now a grown up, and working next door to a branch of ModelZone, buying one would win me no brownie points with the wife
October 21st, 2010 - 14:09
You’re just rubbing it in about Mr Frosty now, you bastard! ;P
October 21st, 2010 - 14:30
I always wanted that board game, Mouse Trap, but had to settle for fucking Mastermind. Seriously, do the two games even bear the slightest resemblance to each other? No, they don’t. One’s fun and has cranks and gears and moving pieces, the other’s boring and consists of sticking coloured plastic pegs into holes.
I wanted a Mr Frosty too.
October 21st, 2010 - 14:34
The whole point of being a grown-up is that you can just go out and buy a fucking Scalextric whenever you feel like it.
October 21st, 2010 - 16:16
My mate had a scalextric set up in the living room for his nipper the other day and we had a go of it. It was a bit like the time I fondly remembered playing “Terminator” on the master system for hours on end as a kid then recently playing it on an emulator to discover to my horror it was actually utter balls.
Or the time I tasted Cremola Foam again for the first time since I was 10 and discovering that it tasted like shit.
Or the time I watched an episode of WWE and realising I spent a large portion of my youth watching half naked baby oiled men pretending to be angry at each other.
Don’t get one, it will just ruin the magical memories of youth!!
October 21st, 2010 - 21:22
I was a lucky little fucker who got most of what I wanted for Christmas (Scalextric, Mr Frosty, Transformers), but I remember one year really wanting a SEGA Megadrive, and ending up with a shitty years-out-of-date NES instead. Heartbroken I was, sitting there playing duck hunt instead of Sonic on Christmas day afternoon.
But then, a revelation… the NES was awesome! For every overrated Megadrive game my mates got (all of which I got to play to death at their houses anyway) I could afford about ten NES games, and some of them were superb. Learnt a valuable life lesson that year I did. Forgotten it now though.
October 21st, 2010 - 22:25
The My Little Pony Pink Castle. Apparently Santa couldn’t fit it on his sleigh.
Saying that, my parents did get my neighbour to make a wooden horse stable, but it was neither pink, nor a castle.
October 26th, 2010 - 15:42
I had the castle! It had Spike the Dragon in a wee basket you could wind up and down! Aw man, I had so much fun with that. Spike was my favourite! Never got the Mr Frosty though. Never forgave my parents for that.
October 22nd, 2010 - 07:54
You’re kin to my bastard younger brother who when I was away at Uni swapped my electric train set for a Scalextric. It was 42 years ago and he’s still not forgiven for it.
October 22nd, 2010 - 10:06
I remember my dad buying me a Scalextric for my seventh birthday. It was brilliant. But he soon decided that it wasn’t safe in me and my brother’s room, in case we fell over it or something while playing roughly, so it was better off in my mum and dad’s room, on a special table that he bought for that purpose. And every month or so, he’d go off to the model shop in Belfast and buy something else like a grandstand or Le Mans touring cars with working headlights, or special super fast grips or a book showing how to make all the Formula 1 tracks. As a “present.” For “me,” though it was much better off in his and my mum’s bedroom, and we’ll keep the box on the high shelf, so it doesn’t come down and get trod on or something.
It honestly took me nearly five years to realise that my Dad never bought me a Scalextric at all, but had merely being using me to get away with buying stuff that my Mum would never have thought acceptable otherwise.
October 22nd, 2010 - 12:49
I want the biggest Range Rover they’ve got, black, oh and with personalised number plates. And I will wash it every Saturday. Because I’m a prick.
October 22nd, 2010 - 16:18
With me it was more a series of nearly but not quites. Oh I got transformer, but did I get Optomus Prime or Jazz or the really cool villian that turned into a radio? No. I got the ones no one had ever heard of. Do you remember Dirg? No. Neither did I. I got the Star Wars stuff but did I get the Millenium Falcon or a X wing? No. I got some contraption that appears once. Very briefly. In the Empire Strikes Back.
And so it went on.
And I always wanted a Mr Frosty.
October 25th, 2010 - 12:39
I had a BigTrak and Firebox are selling them again so even though my mum got rid of it, I might well get another one.
The one thing I always wanted was a Millennium Falcon. The one where you can lift the cockpit and put Han and Chewie in there; where the floorboards in the main section lift up and you can slip Ben Kenobi in there; where you can position R2D2 at the chess board and Luke in the gun section. Fucking brilliant it was and I never got one.
October 25th, 2010 - 12:40
Well, in my role as The Mr Frosty Bastard, can I just point out that the highly toxic ice-based gloop it produces is indeed a cross between manna from Heaven and the ambrosia of the gods. Oh yes.
October 31st, 2010 - 17:40
I’ve just discovered that every Playmobil set I ever wanted is on eBay for a reasonable amount of money (unfortunatley the amount of money gets less reasonable the more you buy), I’m buying them for my *ahem* daughter…..sort of.