In the history of all Christmases that have come to pass, there never was another that so turned the American consumer into a stark raving lunatic like the Cabbage Patch Kids craze of 1983.
During the 1983 holiday season, 3 million Cabbage Patch Kids were sold. After Black Friday, stores were sold out across the country and frustrated shoppers were in revolt. News stories documented near riots at shopping malls and retail stores across the country: a pregnant woman trampled by a crazed mob, a shopper who broke her leg in a scuffle, another who was knocked unconscious in a customer rush.
At Hamleys, the top London toy store, hundreds of people clamored for the dolls when the store opened at 9:00am on December 3rd.
The original dolls weren’t called Cabbage Patch Kids at all; they were called “Little People” and were the creation of Xavier Roberts, a Georgia artist. Xavier made his dolls like his mother made quilts. Each one was handmade, and he signed their butts with a permanent marker — later, some of them would come to be stamped (or signed and stamped).
As the “Little People” grew in popularity, he opened Babyland General, a doll hospital that specialized in adopting out “Little People.” Xavier still made each doll, but his staff dressed up in medical attire and helped families pick their perfect new addition. These dolls came with a slew of adoption paperwork which was all very official and marked them as a Babyland General official “Little People.”
These original dolls have some really distinctive things about them that set them apart and make them particularly valuable. Original “Little People” were completely soft, even the heads — later when they rebranded as Cabbage Patch Kids, they gained vinyl noggins. They also had a huge thumb which was a signature of Xavier originals. The final detail is that every single one of the early dolls was hand-signed by Xavier himself. Later in the line, they were stamped, and most, if not all, of these signatures, had an associated date which makes year identification easier!
In 1982 Coleco was given the right to produce “Little People” under a new name, Cabbage Patch Kids. They created what most people remember as Cabbage Patch Kids from their childhood — the vinyl headed, soft-bodied, yarn-haired dolls that sold in stores all over the world.
“What we are experiencing is an unprecedented consumer demand for the dolls,” said a Coleco spokeswoman.
To satisfy the demand, Coleco promised to increase production significantly, but many store owners across the country were telling disappointed shoppers that more than likely they would not ever have enough to meet demand before Christmas.
Throughout the 1980s, as America’s downtown districts declined in importance and the “big-box” stores began their slow march across the country, malls became increasing central to American popular culture, dominating the social life of a large swath of the population.
At the time, shopping malls had become the meeting place for America's youth, as teens of every different stripe milled about the food courts, smoked cigarettes, and went from chain store to chain store in search of temporary employment.
With the arrival of more money in people’s pockets to spend on both essentials and luxuries (first in the United States from the late 1940s and then in other industrialised countries from the mid-1950s) shops and shopping were transformed.
In the 1960s and early 1970s, an increasing choice of branded products filled supermarket shelves, amongst them frozen and chilled items such as ready-made meals, yoghurt and desserts (for most homes now had a refrigerator).
Fashion was still a necessity in this period. With many breakthroughs, new styles of the 60s and 70s, including skirts, bell bottom pants, shorts,... they have changed the way people were shopping.
Take a look at these cool pics to see how people went shopping from the 1960s and 1970s.
Once upon a time, shoe salesman was a semi-respectable job that paid a living wage. Back in the day, there weren’t cheap shoe stores that sold footwear manufactured in sweat shops for pennies. Buying a shoe was a serious purchase!
These vintage photographs, primarily found photos from Flashbak, of ladies shopping for shoes, feature their humble manservants hard at work selling them their beloved footwear.
Take a look at Macy’s best-selling holiday gifts of 1948—which LIFE compiled, along with the number of each item sold and at what price—and it's immediately apparent that things have changed since then.
For starters, the gifts then skewed more toward the practical. Such everyday items as a pair of nylons or a ballpoint pen, the department store’s third- and fourth-highest-selling items that season, may ignite little excitement in today’s gift receiver, who has been conditioned to want little more than the latest Apple product. Second, there is a conspicuous absence of anything technological, whereas nearly seven decades later, more than two thirds of holiday shoppers plan to purchase electronics for their loved ones.
Then again, the rise of personal technology was still decades away, as these were the days when fewer than 10% of households even had a TV set. Rather than instruments of entertainment, gift-givers wrapped up objects that were wearable or edible, and immediately usable: a pair of pajamas, a bottle of scotch or that perennial favorite, some sturdy slippers. Basic, to be sure—but sure to be put to frequent use.
1970s New York was a city of infinite contrast as well as unending possibility. Grimy, graffiti-marred subway cars rumbled under litter-strewn neighborhoods where unemployment rates reached epic proportions and crime was at an all-time high. The newly-burgeoning disco scene set the city ablaze with celebrity-studded parties held behind velvet ropes and out of reach for most New Yorkers.
These wonderful photos below were taken and scanned from color Ektachrome slides by Frank Florianz. The photographs were all taken in or around Macy's 34th Street in Manhattan, New York City, just before Christmas in 1979.
Video game consoles are the best Christmas presents since the 1980s!
Every Christmas since the much-loved decade that was the 1980s is always the same – kids pray all year for a video game console and go crazy when they unwrap it on Christmas morning.
The crazy joy of playing video games began in the mid ’80s and as time goes by, it becomes more of a phenomenon, as more and more children ask for game consoles each and every year from Santa.
Below is a collection of 20 interesting pictures in which children, teenagers and even grown-ups prove to us that there’s no better gift than a video game console for Christmas. This compilation is absolutely hilarious, and we’re certain you’ll love it.
1. Tele-Games Pong: Originally released in 1975 under Sears' Tele-Games brand. Later released by Atari under their own name.
2. Magnavox Odyssey 100: Released in 1977.
3. Atari Video Computer System: Released in 1977. Renamed 2600 in 1982.
True, the streets don’t look as festive, and store facades aren’t as decked out as they are today. But in terms of the crowds, the vendors, and all the kids captivated by toy displays, holiday shopping in New York City hasn’t really changed much in the past century, as these photos from abut 1910 reveal.
