Before Black Friday emails and Cyber Monday were a thing, we kids in the 80s anxiously awaited the Sears Holiday Wishbook. It came out in the fall and featured all the highest tech toys and newest gadgets and trendy clothes, the stuff every kid would be asking for. I think it might’ve even included a blank wishlist for you to write your desired items in.
I can recall sitting on the floor in front of the TV with Newhart playing in the background and circling each item I wanted for Christmas: The big My Little Pony castle, Rainbow Brite plushies, and the humungous Hot Wheels racetrack, maybe even a pogo stick, because, why not?
But the Sears catalog wasn’t just a holiday thing, it was a year round tradition and looking back that way of shopping feels like a different world! Before the internet, before cell phones, before even desktop computers were the norm, the Sears catalog was the most modern way to shop. But rather than one tap on your phone, this “convenient” method was a multi-step process.
First, you went to the physical Sears store where you’d find a metal rack with (hopefully) Sears catalogs stacked inside. I didn’t realize that the catalog cost $5! That’s like $12 today, no wonder we kept it around all year. These books were thick, like Yellow Pages of shopping, maybe 300+ pages long. You’d take it home and browse through – in my case MANY times. One year I can recall the drop of the latest “NASA kids fashion” line. It was a small line of space-themed clothing across three or four packages, packed with silver lamé backpacks and duffles, oversized sweatshirts and techno vibes. I wanted EVERY piece. I don’t think I ever actually got any of the collection, but I did recently went on eBay searching for those pieces. And yes, I completely spaced on the fact that NONE of those pieces would fit my size 10 ADULT woman’s body.
Me and my mom would scroll through the catalog endlessly. When we’d decide on something, like new curtains or a new bedspread, she would go into the kitchen (that was the “business” phone after all) and place the order. She didn’t have a credit card and debit cards didn’t even exist. She would just place the request and get a date when it would be ready. Or maybe we’d fill out the catalog form by writing in the item number, description and price and calculating the tax to get a grand total. Then we’d go to the pharmacy and buy a money order for like a quarter (my parents were scared of writing checks) and send in the payment.
In a few weeks (!!!) we’d get a postcard that said our items were ready for pickup. Then we’d go to the Neshaminy Mall in Bensalem, PA where our closest Sears was located. If I recall, that postcard contained the valuable information of what aisle and bin you could find your products. We’d go to this self service area in the back of the store that looked like an office-sized warehouse and find the correct aisle to go down. It wasn’t too big of a hunt though because there were only about four aisles to choose from. Once you found your aisle, then you looked through the bin numbers to locate your number and find your stuff waiting. It felt rather like a secret agent, like a package was waiting for us at this clandestine location.
Sears was such an interesting place. The bottom floor, reserved for its Craftsman brand, felt more like a mini Home Depot but within a nice department store vibe. It’s as if they chucked some chainsaws and weed whackers into a Macy’s today. There were riding mowers and the distinct smell of fertilizer. The main middle floor of our Sears had a key maker where you could get keys made and buy a fancy lighter at the same time. During the holidays, there were special little pop-up shops (before pop-up shop was an actual term).
The Halloween costume shop and Christmas stocking personalization zone were my favorite. That to me was the height of cool teenage job positions, usually held by girls who looked like Phoebe Cates and Jennifer Connelly. At Christmas time, they would expertly use Elmer’s glue to write in cursive the name you requested on a large red fur Christmas stocking and then dip the area in multicolored glitter. This personalized Christmas stocking felt like the height of customization. Nearby was a tiny lottery booth where you could “play your numbers,” and buy state lottery tickets. My aunt used to work there, sitting on a little bar stool under the escalator with a large ticket machine that made lots of sci-fi noises as it printed out your ticket to gamble for the night.
Upstairs was a full Kenmore appliance shopping area, with salespeople in their fancy salespeople attire shuffling around waiting to make a sale. Next to that was the carpeted “electronics” area where they sold big screen TVs, VCR players, camcorders, and eventually, desktop computers. Everything here cost so much, most of it you could only look at and dream about. Then there was the portrait studio, where the sounds of rattles and screaming babies could be heard from departments nearby.
But what really set Sears apart from the other department stores of the time, like JCPenney’s, Pomeroy’s and Strawbridge’s, was the catalog. It showed you how you could be living, in velour usually, with everything from the latest in ceiling lights and carpeting to jewelry and toys. Everything you wanted and needed, in one book, ready for your wishes to be identified and realized, you just needed to find the right aisle and bin number to get it all.