This is the last picture I have of 1980. Luckily, it shows all of my presents right there in one place.

I am opening the BEST present that I got that year. It was called the Fashion Design Center. I can barely describe how fun and cool it was. There were plates of heads, torsos, pants, skirts and footwear. You could choose whatever you wanted, place the plates in the center and put a piece of paper over it. Then you go over the plates and paper with a black crayon. It would show the outline of the model that I had created. After that, I could color the model with colored pencils, water colors or crayons. Honestly, the colored pencils worked better than anything, but having those options was really cool. I played with that toy until about ninth grade. I have no idea where it is now, but it served me well for the years I had it.

I think the SuperCurl 3 in 1 was a hair dryer. I don’t quite remember anything except hoping that it would finally be the magic tool that would help me make my hair look cool. It didn’t. It would take me about ten years before I learned that if I didn’t brush my hair, it would be just fine. No fancy blow dryers or curling irons are necessary, just leave my hair alone, and it will look so much better.

The next present is the Fresh n’ Fancy Perfume Making Kit. I made many smelly concoctions with that thing. The next year, I would get a chemistry set for Christmas. You can’t imagine the smells that I made with that thing. It’s not pictured here, but that same year, I got a fingernail polish making kit. I very quickly learned that I could make red, pink or orange polish and no matter what I did, the polish would peel off my nails in one rubbery piece.

The last present pictured there are my Fireball Roller Skates! I loved those things! Chelly Bird, my friend, had a pair of tennis shoe roller skates, so now I would finally be able to skate with her. Sure, those skates were more like roller derby skates, but they were better than nothing! I wanted to skate with them so bad that the next day, I skated on our covered patio in the backyard. There wasn’t much room, but I wanted to be able to play with my new toy. I skated all that winter to school.

That year, I got a lot of presents. I think that year we got past the “Don’t Celebrate The Holidays” technicality by opening presents on New Year’s Eve instead of Christmas Morning. It didn’t matter to me. For once I was more like normal kids. I got to come back from the school break and say, “I got roller skates for Christmas.” We got a pretty Christmas tree with lights and pine smells. It was a great Christmas that year. I’m smiling just thinking about it.