BEST Christmas Gift Ever ~ Part 2

Ok, Part 2!

Another BEST Christmas Present EVER! that I received was circa 4th grade. Or 5th grade...it's kinda fuzzy in my old age...it was somewhere around 1986-87....

I had had a radio of my very own for quite sometime, (KC'ers, remember when Q104 was a pop station?) but what I DIDN'T have was a cassette tape player. I stole the Sunday paper from parents and scoured the circulars, searching for the perfect one so I could clip it out and send it's picture to Santa with my letter (by this time, I was jaded and didn't believe in him anymore, but I've since changed my mind. There is a Santa Claus.)

Anyway, I finally found THE one I wanted. Wrote my letter, inserted clipping, licked and sent envelope.

I didn't get the one I wanted.

I got one that was way RADDER!

It was a hot pink and purple metallic dual-deck "ghettoblaster" (hee hee, remember when you could say that with a straight face?). Oh it was so awesome. Santa obviously had better taste than I did.

Not only did I get the coolest ghettoblaster on the planet....I got the cassette tapes I was SO wanting too. Are you ready?

Tiffany
Belinda Carlisle
AND
Debbie Gibson

How absolutely cool was I? The coolest. I was expecting maybe one, maybe two, nope. I got the trifecta. I remember having heated playground debates about who was better, Tiffany or Debbie, each of us girls drawing a line in the pea gravel under the slides and defending our diva with vehemence. (I was a totally Tiffany gal, probably because of her remake of the Beatles "I Saw Him/Her Standing There").

I remember many years of happy use, hitting the "Record" button the second my latest and favoritest song came on the radio. It was with a bit of sadness that I put that hot pink wonder away when I got my first CD player. Sigh...It was such a valuable tool in embracing '80's pop culture. I listened to Kasey Kasem religiously on that radio....and discovered Dr. Demento, but it was on so late I had to turn the volume WAY down so my parents wouldn't hear it.

Fun...Darling's had a CD player since birth...Handsome insisted on playing Baby Einstein for her and she has quite the collection of kiddie music now...sad she'll never know the glory of receiving her first ever radio/cassette player...

Happy holidays, Constant Reader, and stay tuned for more BEST Christmas Present EVER! installments.