Merry Christmas everyone!  For the past week, we’ve been going to many Christmas parties, feasting out non stop: turkey with all the trimmings, lobster quiche, roast duck, seafood platters and non stop desserts.  Didn’t lug my camera around to take pictures, but we are now recovering from a food coma.

In the midst of the holiday season, I recalled a childhood memory (related to toys) that I wanted to share.  Since I was a child, my family had a tradition where we would leave out a plate of cookies and a glass of milk by the fireplace on Christmas eve.  In the morning, I would rush down and see the cookies gone and the glass of milk half empty with the stockings filled.  When I was around ten, like every other year, we followed the tradition and as I raced down to the fireplace, although the cookies were gone, to my disappointment, there was nothing in the stocking except for a hand written note telling me to go to the Christmas tree to find my gift.  I ran to the tree and from afar, it looked pretty normal, all lit up and covered with ornaments.  As I got closer, I could see some odd figures buried in the tree.  There were all these carded figures, about 2inches tall , embedded throughout the tree.  There must have been more than ten buried in there.  It was so fun to look for all of them and probably took close to ten minutes.  It was so exciting to have to go searching for them and the fact that there were so many in there made it all the more exhilarating.  I’ll never forget that moment and to this day, whenever I give gifts to my nephew and niece, I find I’m creating these odd treasure hunts for them.

About the toys.  Most of us are familiar with the popular toys of the eighties: Transformers, G.I. Joe, He Man, etc.  but my dad had found something new for me.  The tiny figures embedded in our Christmas tree were from the Starcom series.  The toys, made by Coleco/Mattel from the mid 80’s to early 90’s, were based on an animated TV show (but  I never watched it).  The series resembled a sort of space army with character and vehicle styles similar to the Alien series of movies.

What made this series of toys so unique was that it used magnets.  Inserted in the feet of each figure were a set of tiny magnets.  The figures could then be attached to any metal surface.  Every vehicle also had a metal insert where the figures could connect.   The vehicles also had magnets so they could attach to one another.  The other neat thing was that all the vehicles could transform or open automatically using some sort of wind up toy mechanism with no batteries.

I found some of my old collection and realized that they simply don’t make toys like this anymore.  They are really incredible and well designed toys.  They’re probably not safe for kids these days with the magnets but they are really great.  Here’s what they look like:

 

 

 

 

Anyways, I just recalled this great experience from my childhood Christmas and this fantastic series of toys.  You can still find them on Ebay (sometimes in unopened boxes).  Back when my dad bought these, they were about $2 a figure.  They’re around $25-$29 a figure on Ebay now.  If I ever see any at a good price, I’ll pick them up right away!