Toys on the move

The connection between Christmas and toys is a long-standing one. At one time, toys were handmade rather than store-bought. As society evolved, and technology along with it, superior materials, new forms of media and innovative production technology have changed the type of toys available. Some of these playthings become a fad for a short time, others come back year after year though sometimes in a changed form.

One of the most beloved toys, the Teddy Bear traces its origins to a hunting trip when Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a bear that had been caught and tied to a tree by the expedition trackers. The pardoned adult bear morphed into a winsome cub in the mind of a Brooklyn toy-shop owner who created a stuffed one and called it Teddy's bear. A German toy manufacturer began mass producing similar cubs in 1903. They immediately became popular and remain so to this day, given not only to children as Christmas toys but to teenagers and adults as well.

Teddys now range in size from tiny to huge; they wear bows or clothes, even sports jerseys; they hold hearts for Valentine's Day and flags on the Fourth of July; some light up or talk when squeezed. Winnie-the-Pooh, Corduroy, Paddington Bear and others are the subject of beloved books and some have become stars of their own movies.

The jigsaw puzzle is another item that has persisted through time. Its origins go back to 1767 when an English mapmaker pasted his maps onto boards and cut them along country borders. The idea caught on as an educational tool, the cut-piece method being used to teach geography, history and Holy Scripture.

By the early 1900s, when it became evident adults as well as children enjoyed fitting pieces together, puzzles began to include entertaining pictures. Pieces were still wooden shapes retaining the contours of the objects and cut using jigsaws. Parker Brothers capitalized on the idea, at one time hiring 225 jigsaw cutters who produced 15,000 puzzles per week. Each cutter was allowed to cut whatever shapes she wished (most cutters were women). Interlocking knobs were eventually introduced, forcing the various pieces to retain their connected shapes once put together. 

In the 1930s die cutting machines took over the manual work and cardboard replaced wood, making puzzles considerably less expensive. During the Depression these cardboard puzzles became one of the few affordable forms of entertainment for many people. 

Today, puzzles range from three to 54,000 pieces and encompass a plethora of subjects. There are panorama puzzles, stand-up 3-dimensional ones and computer versions that take away the need for a large working space and completely negate the possibility of lost pieces.

In the pre-computer era, board games were popular presents, the most famous and long-lived game being Monopoly. The original game was invented and patented in 1904 under the name The Lord's Game. The game's popularity grew, primarily because people made their own copies of the board, often changing the names of the properties to ones familiar to them and the group they introduced to the game. 

In 1935 Parker Brothers began mass producing the game, renamed Monopoly. The game quickly became a worldwide phenomenon. In the United Kingdom the properties reflected London locations. Versions were made for Switzerland, Belgium, Australia, Chile, the Netherlands and Sweden. Nor did the innovations end with countries. Today there are versions featuring Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Jurassic World, the National Parks, Disney Theme Parks, the NFL and a Braille version, to highlight just a few. 

Monopoly also evolved to accommodate technology. There is an Electronic Banking version with swipeable bank cards as well as a computer/console game featuring a 3-D city that changes to reflect the player's actions.

The Hula Hoop is a toy that jumped to popularity in the decades after. Though hoops have been tossed onto pegs and rolled with sticks for centuries, swirling one around the waist became the thing to do in the 1950s. The hula hoop, so named because it imitated the movement of Hawaiian hula dancers, was the brainchild of Wham-O Toy Company whose founders piggy-backed on an Australian gym teacher's use of bamboo hoops in her exercise classes. Coincidentally, Phillips Petroleum had developed a new type of plastic which could be molded in a circle. Thus, the hula hoop was born. It became a plaything staple and a decade-defining trend. 

Another plaything trending in the 1950s and '60s was the skateboard. A cross between roller skates and a surfboard, it became popular as an offseason activity when the surf was not up, or for many, not available at all. Depending on the strictness of the definition, a very early antecedent to the skateboard (and to roller skates) was invented in the early 1600s in the Netherlands. Consisting simply of wooden spools attached to a platform, it was conceived as a summer alternative to ice skating.

The Roller Derby Skate Corporation launched mass-produced skateboards in 1959, followed closely by surf shops who made their own modifications. By the late 1960s, millions of children and teens took to the sport as either a mode of transportation or to experiment with an array of tricks such as the kickflip, the heelflip, the wallride, 180 or 360 flips, the grind and the board slide. As skateboard moves became more complex, skate parks and other venues began to be constructed to accommodate the activity's popularity.

Something else that grew in popularity at the same time was the Easy-Bake Oven. Prior to the 1960s children helped mom bake or perhaps they had a look-alike stove on which they pretended to cook. But in 1963 some genius at Kenner, Inc. realized under the proper conditions an ordinary light bulb (actually two) produced enough heat to bake a small quantity of real food.  The Easy-Bake Oven, with just-add-water packets of cake mix and small round pans, hit the toy shelves the month before Christmas 1963 and sold out immediately. Kenner quickly added 25 different cake, cookie and candy mix packets.

Over the years, in keeping with cultural changes and improved technology, the design of the stove evolved, as did the method of heating. By 2011 the Easy-Bake Ultimate Oven had a dedicated heating element. Today package kits include cakes, pies, pretzels, cookies, pizzas and more. In addition, the Internet abounds with homemade recipes that can be baked in the units.

One product that set the stage for an entirely new toy and media genre was the Atari 2600 Game system. As video game usage continues its upward trajectory, the original spread of the virtual phenomenon can be accredited to this system which was released in 1975. While Magnavox Odyssey is considered the official first home video game system, Atari is widely considered to have popularized this personal style of gameplay. This system was released in 1977, two years after the digital table-tennis game Pong was released to households. One important feature of the gaming system was that players could change games by inserting new cartridges. This gave players the ability to customize what games they could play whenever they wanted.

By the 1990s handheld computers and console units with their accompanying games were prominent in Santa's Christmas letters. One pocket-sized product series that would go on to become a gargantuan fad were Tamagotchis.

A Tamagotchi is a handheld digital alien pet encased in an egg-shaped computer. It was released to the world by Japanese toy company Bandai in 1997. In the late '90s early 2000s, it became a widespread fad among schoolchildren, reflecting the increasing amount of technology integrated into toys. The Tamagotchi owners' role was to care for the pet and help it grow. Tasks included feeding, cleaning and playing with it. Neglecting any of these tasks for an extended period of time eventually resulted in the death of the creature. For children with low attention spans, this was an inevitable event.

Furthering the integration of technology into toys eventually led to the opposite where toys were integrated into technology as was the case with Nintendo's announcement of Amiibos in 2014. Amiibos are a figurine series that are able to directly interact with multiple video games on Nintendo consoles like Wii U, Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Switch. Once a character is scanned into a compatible game, then the user can unlock certain features for said game like special items or the ability to automatically improve skills by collecting game data. Characters come from multiple Nintendo franchises including Super Mario, Legend of Zelda and Animal Crossing. The release of more exclusive editions has caused some figures to become collectible and garner high asking prices.

Toys are like any other cultural staple developed in the last century. Some are able to surpass their era and influence decades to come while others fade out in popularity within a few years. Regardless, for many children the toys they grow up with act not only as methods to express creativity and create fond memories but also as a means to build connections across generations.