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The Complete History of Iconic Christmas Gifts

A COMPLETE HISTORY OF ICONIC GIFTS BEANIE BABIES £4.50 EACH The Beanie Babies' unique selling point was that, although being largely for children, they were also seen as valuable collector's items to many adults. There were those that were willing to pay thousands of dollars investing in Beanie Babies as they believed they would significantly increase in value over future years. 1995 TICKLE ME ELMO £19.00 The Tickle Me Elmo was a toy created from the popular character of the children's television series, Sesame Street. Considering that Sesame Street had at one point been viewed by 95% of all American children, it's no surprise that the toy was such a huge success and received such great demand. 1996 TAMAGOTCHI £11.99 The Tamagotchi was the virtual pet simulation toy which everybody was hoping to find under their tree in 1997. The days when a Tamagotchi was the closest substitution for getting a real pet is probably a familiar memory for most 90s kids. 1997 THE FURBY £23.00 The Furby was undoubtedly one of the biggest gift crazes of the 90s! With over 1.8 million being sold in 1998 alone, this robotic toy, which featured the capability to speak 24 different languages, was made popular for its apparent intelligence and unique features. It was also the first product of its kind during this era. 1998 NINTENDO POKÉMON £19.99 When the Pokémon games were released for the Nintendo Game Boy, it could not have been predicted that they would turn out to be the second-most successful and lucrative video game media franchise in the world! From the moment it was released, the game was in great 1999 demand and this lead to an expansion into trading cards, television and even movies for Pokémon. RAZOR SCOOTER £65.00 The Razor scooter was not only the most popular toy of the year, it also managed to find itself established as a 'classic mode of transportation, like bikes or skateboards'. Approximately one million of these foldable scooters were sold in their first year of business. They were even featured 2000 as the vehicle of choice for Owen Wilson's the 2001 hit film, Zoolander. BRATZ DOLLS £6.00 - £15.00 The Bratz dolls were created to look like the average teenager, and apparently to the people at MGA Entertainment, that meant giving them large heads, narrow bodies and very heavy makeup. Despite a slow start in their sales, by the time Christmas rolled around, the Bratz Dolls were hugely popular, only falling short of the fashion-doll giant, Barbie. 2001 BEYBLADES £5.00 EACH The Beyblade was a spinning-top game where players would eject their tops into an arena and the last Beyblade standing would be the winner. The toy was introduced along with the popular television anime series with the same name. This caused a huge amount of hype around the toy and led it to become the most popular toy trend of that year. 2002 THE ROBOSAPIEN £65.00 The Robosapien was the first intelligent entertainment robot made affordable for every day families. The Robosapien was trained to perform up to 67 functions including dancing and even karate! The robot was also smart enough to be able to sense and avoid objects around him. The release of the Robosapien was an exciting time for all children of that period, and evidently, they all 2003 wanted to be the first to have one. NINTEND O DS £99.00 When the Nintendo DS was first released there was a lot of hype over the dual-screen handheld game console. The ability to connect with other players through wireless connectivity was still something of a novelty and helped to generate a lot of excitement. By 2005, Nintendo announced that they had managed to sell 6.65 million units worldwide 2004 of the Nintendo DS during its first year. XBOX 360 £265.00 When the Xbox 360 was released, consumers were left braving the cold for hours on end, queuing in order to be one of the first to get their hands on it! The high levels of anticipation were clearly widespread as Microsoft quickly depleted their stock levels, leaving many of their customers empty handed for Christmas. Even despite this 2005 mishap, the Xbox 360 still remained to be the most popular gift of the year. SONY PLAYSTATION 3 OVER £199.99 Released a year later, and in heavy competition with the Xbox 360, the Sony PlayStation 3 was the first videogame console to use Blu-ray disc media format which meant it had the ability to also play high definition movies. This quality made it an appealing console for both the gamer and the rest of the family. It quickly took the first spot as the hottest Christmas gift for that year. 388 2006 IPOD TOUCH £199.99 (8GB) The iPod Touch was a landmark for music devices, being the first of its kind to include features such as built in WiFi networking and a multi-touch interface. The sleek design and new features made the iPod Touch Apple's latest breakthrough, they were sure it would be an enormous success and they weren't wrong. In 2007 alone, Apple sold 2007 141 million iPods. ELMO LIVE £39.99 After the success of Tickle Me Elmo, the people of Fisher Price decided it was time to add another aspect to the popular Sesame Street Character's toy line. Elmo Live was made with the intention of making kids feel like they had a real life Elmo living with them. The doll could move, tell stories and even crack a joke. The Elmo Live doll proved to 2008 be a huge success amongst kids everywhere. NINTEND O Wii £165.00 Despite being released in 2006, the Wii didn't start to see sales that could match those of their competitors, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, until 2009. The Wii was an entirely different console, focusing on the handheld remote device which detected the movements of the players. By 000 December 2009, the console managed to break the sales record for a single month in the US, making it the most popular Christmas present of that year. 2009 APPLE IPAD £330.00 Although it was released in May, the iPad was still in high demand when it came to Christmas time. The first device to effectively combine the mobility of a smart phone with the functionality and speed of a laptop, the iPad was the gadget that everyone was hoping to receive that year. Despite the rather extreme price tag and early release date, the iPad still 2010 managed to come out as the most purchased Christmas present that year. LET'S ROCK ELMO £46.50 With Elmo's third appearance on our list of iconic gifts I think it's fair to say he is clearly a favourite amongst children of all generations. The 'Let's Rock Elmo' could sing and play instruments and encouraged children to sing along to all six of his Elmo-themed songs. Needless to say, 2011 was another noisy Christmas for parents all over the country. 2011 THE FURBY(NEW AND IMPROVED) £40.00 After being such a huge success in 1998, the people at Hasbro decided that there was still a lot more that could be done with the Furby, and so in 2012, they relaunched the toy with some modern updates to appeal to the children of the 21st century. The new Furbies were equipped with computerised brains and sensors to allow them to 2012 communicate with each other and react to the child that owns it. The new features and a strong marketing campaign lead the Furby back to its original glory! FITBIT FLEX £80.00 In 2013, with an ever-increasing emphasis being placed on health and fitness, the launch of the Fitbit Flex was exactly what everybody was looking for. The Fitbit Flex allowed 24 hour tracking of your every-day movements and sleep patterns, allowing you to set goals to achieve and giving you motivation to reach the fitness levels you desire. The Fitbit Flex was absolutely the must-have product of 2013. 2013 IPHONE 6 £130.00 One of the most anticipated releases of the year was undoubtedly that of the iPhone 6, with many fans camping overnight outside the shop to be one of the first to get their hands on one. And, as always, Apple did not disappoint. Customers went crazy over the new bigger, and clearer, screen as well as the increased Wi-Fi speeds and camera capabilities. 2014 2015? SOURCES + REFERENCES Gifts.co.uk kmbc.com esquire.com tvblogs.nationalgeographic.com theguardian.com bustle.com en.wikipedia.org my.xfinity.com historyofdolls.com theverge.com 0o:

The Complete History of Iconic Christmas Gifts

shared by GiftsUK on Dec 06
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Every Christmas we witness a battle between brands to create the most in-demand present of the year. Throughout the last two decades we’ve seen some huge and bizarre crazes, from the talking ball o...

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