{"id":25716,"date":"2017-09-10T07:01:31","date_gmt":"2017-09-10T13:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/?p=25716"},"modified":"2024-08-03T16:03:52","modified_gmt":"2024-08-03T22:03:52","slug":"christmas-in-the-1970s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/christmas-in-the-1970s\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas in the 1970s"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christmas<\/a> in the 1970s was an era between eras. Music and television stars of the 1950s still produced major Christmas<\/a> releases and the gifts, toys and fads of the time seemed
\ncaught sometimes between a time warp to the past and to the future.<\/p>\n

Take, for example, the wildly popular Star Wars action figures \u2013 the hottest toys of the late 1970s. Star Wars is just as wildly popular now as it was then.<\/p>\n

\"Star<\/p>\n

Video games got their start in the 1970s. Only they were not called \u201cvideo games\u201d. They didn\u2019t know what to call them then.<\/p>\n

At the very first, they were known as \u201ctelevision gaming apparatus\u201d. All kids knew was that the game they wanted was called Pong and it was played on the TV.<\/p>\n

\"Pong\"<\/p>\n

Of course, televisions of the 1970s were nothing like TVs today. They were furniture.<\/p>\n

\"Television<\/p>\n

Atari partnered with Sears and in 1975 released PONG under the Sears Tele-Games label. The $100 game system was Sears’ best-selling item during the 1975 Christmas<\/a> season, with sales of more than $40 million.<\/p>\n

Sears was a major Christmas<\/a> retailer for any Christmas<\/a> shopper in the 1970s. One of the most cherished Christmas<\/a> memories of those who grew up during the decade of the 70s is waiting for the annual Sears Christmas<\/a> Wish Book, a catalogue of everything a kid dreamed of getting for Christmas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Sears<\/p>\n

But if it was Christmas<\/a> shopping you wanted to do in the 1970s you did it at the mall. In fact, Christmas<\/a> shopping in the 70s had a much bigger footprint than shopping areas of the today — because that was the only place you could get it.<\/p>\n

\"Christmas<\/p>\n

This is what Christmas<\/a> in the 1970s looked like in a midwest American city, complete with street decorations<\/a> and big gas guzzling cars:<\/p>\n

\"Christmas<\/p>\n

For Christmas<\/a> music, nobody was bigger with it in the 1970s than the Carpenters:<\/p>\n