It’s the most wonderful time of the year, again! Amidst all the shopping, cooking, visiting and general holiday business, every year I always seem to find myself revisiting an old home video, or two. This year I decided to pop in the ‘ol XMAS 1997 tape, and I was stunned at how many gifts my parents were able to capture on film!

I was four years old this Christmas, and boy, did I receive some absolute bangers of toys! Come with me, won’t you, and experience Christmas as it was 25 years ago.

Sock’Em Boppers

A quarter of a century later and I still can’t get this goddamn jingle out of my head!

The premise behind Sock’em Boppers was simple yet incredibly effective: what if you could act on your most wild, violent impulses, and not break any bones in the process? I don’t think there is a kid in the world that would object to such an offer, I know I sure didn’t! Truth be told, I’m still flabbergasted that this is something my parent’s let me keep and actively use. For people who were staunchly in the camp of “anti-fighting”, they seemed to have no issue with me throwing punches so long as I had these pool floats on my hands.

It’s hard to tell, but I was shocked to learn through this video that I was actually gifted two sets, one for me and one for a competitor of my choice. The reason I was shocked is because for most of my childhood I distinctly remember having to fight with my cousins one handed, each of us taking a glove and putting our uncovered fist behind our backs to stay safe.

I guess these things popped quickly!

Spider-Man Spider Force Web Car & figures

‘97 was apparently a huge Spider-Man year for me. First things first, let’s talk about this here web car and how absolutely badass it is. It’s a little hard to tell from my picture, so let’s take a look at the commercial for the toy line.

The car itself was made from an almost transparent plastic, as was the style at the time (same with onion belts.) You add a working claw to the grill and spider legs that move when the car is in motion and you’ve got yourself something special!

As for the figures, I got two but they were a little tough to figure out which ones. I know for a fact I had Tarantula while growing up, but I’ll be damned if I know what the second one was. Let’s just say I got Spider-Man himself and call it a day.

And then we have one of the greatest (and shortest lived) toys of my childhood…

spider-man web blaster

Buddy, when I tell you I begged for this web blaster for months, that’s still a bit of an understatement. If you’re not familiar with the web blaster I’ll catch you up to speed: quick shot silly string. That’s it, nothing fancy!

Now you might be thinking hmmm, a four year old with a can of silly string, pretending to be a super hero…that mustn’t end well? You’d be right!

I don’t think I had this toy for six months before my parents took it away from me forever. One fateful day in early spring, I took my web blaster outside and was jumping around like a maniac pretending to save the day. Enter: my two year old sister. She ran up behind me and I unleashed a full can of web directly on her face. When I was through, she looked like Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire (you know that scene.)

Needless to say my parents weren’t thrilled, and my beloved web blaster was never to be seen again. Ahhh, memories.

ninja turtles vhs tapes

It’s impressive that even ten years into the show’s run, kids like me were still getting hyped for Ninja Turtles. Good ‘ol Santa stuffed my stocking with not one but two of the fabled f.h.e. Turtles VHS tapes!

I ended up with Pizza by the Shred and The Shredder is Splinted, and boy did I give those tapes a workout in the years that followed. I’m honestly shocked that they still played when I did eventually get rid of them!

There’s not much more I can say about TMNT that hasn’t been said by everyone else on the internet, especially Grimey. It’s iconic, it’s nostalgic, and it’s downright fun. It warms my heart knowing that a quarter of a century later, kids are still pulling turtles merch out of their stockings every December 25th.

leonardo place mat

Watching this tape back, I had a lot of “oh…so THAT’S where that came from” moments. This Leonardo placement is one of those items that I had & used all throughout my childhood, but had no idea of it’s ties to Christmas. This thing certainly was cool, if not a bit simple. But did it really need to be anything more than what it was? Nope.

I wish I could find a better, higher quality photo of it, but after searching high and low on the internet…this might be the only photo of it in existence. If you have a picture, please share it with us!

chocolate blue m&m

M&M’s have been around forever, but in the ‘90s they were on top of the world thanks to many a great marketing campaign. The biggest campaign came in 1995 when the public was tasked with picking a new candy color to replace the long-standing tan M&M. Blue ended up winning with 54% of the vote over Purple and Pink, and so began his reign over the latter half of the decade.

While we’re on the subject of of both M&M’s and the year 1997, let’s talk about this classic commercial. If there was ever an ad that I would want to live in, this would be the one. I know people really love that Hershey’s Kiss Jingle Bells commercial that gets played every year, but I don’t and I wish that THIS commercial would take its place instead.

Game boy pocket

I mentioned this gift last year on one of our podcasts, but I was excited to see myself actually playing my new Game Boy Pocket on Christmas Eve! At this point I only had one game - Donkey Kong Land 2 - and I absolutely loved it. As far as Game Boy games go, this might be my most played, maybe only to be beaten by Super Mario Land.

As you can see, once I opened up my new system, my socializing for the night was over. I was in a Ninten-trance that couldn’t even be broken with the promise of opening more gifts.

I mentioned it on the podcast, but my Aunt Janie (pictured below) is who gave me the Game Boy. I still have it to this very day!

For the grand finale, I’ve got a weird one for you…

and finally…a ski mask?

Kids are weird, man…what can I say? Apparently the gift I had my heart set on 25 years ago was a ski mask. I dunno dude, the heart wants what it wants. My dad seems to think that I wanted one so I could pretend to be a ninja, and after watching the video I think he might be right about that.

I pull the mask out of my stocking and immediately beg my dad to help me put it on. I run out of frame to go check out myself in the mirror before I come screaming back, punching and kicking like Mac from Always Sunny. Amazing.

Well, that’s going to do it! Thanks for taking a look back on some of my favorite gifts from Christmas 1997, I hope it brought back some holiday memories for you!