The arrival of the Sears Christmas Wish Book was a major event in the Trutor household. It usually came around the time the Red Sox were eliminated from contention in the AL East.
Everyone in my family thumbed through the 700-page digest, making note of the items that appealed to them on a yellow, legal-sized piece of paper tucked among the order forms. Some of those items would inevitably end up under the tree on Christmas morning.
I treated the Wish Book a little differently than the rest of my family. I didn’t simply have a favorite item on every page. I had an opinion on every single type of product in the book. I had a favorite girdle, griddle, garage door opener and jabot. I had strong opinions on interior paint, camcorder tripods and sewing machines.
Most of all, I cared about the sports collectibles and clothing, which became ever more abundant in the catalog in the late 1980s
