These are a few of my favorite things

The Holy Grail of toys in  the 60's

Just looking at this Easy-Bake Oven takes me back to memories of childhood.  On this Flashback Friday I am having serious flashbacks!  Alas, I never owned the prized plastic baking incinerator although I wanted one, ohhhhhh I wanted one.  I speculate that my Mom wouldn't let me have one because she didn't trust that a light bulb could cook dough thoroughly enough to be safe to eat.  Bah, moms worry too much.  Well, I made up for it when I got older and I still prefer baking than cooking.  So all those "horrible" desserts I make are all my Mom's fault :)   Going back just around the the same time as the 

Easy-Bake was the Suzy Homemaker collection.  I wanted ANY cooking related item but all I got was the stupid iron and, come to think of it, ironing is the only household job that I really do hate.  Geez, my Mom really messed me over!  

Didn't get this one either....

...instead I got this!

Finally, the toy of my dreams!

But don't give up on my Marmy just yet!  My absolute most memorable Christmas presents were, oddly enough, kitchen related.  The Numero Uno gift was a set of Mini-matic toy appliances.

It was battery operated but no real cooking was involved so I suppose my Mom thought that was okay.  The cabinet base held the power and you got to plug your appliance in to have it work, just like for real!  I had the blender, my favorite of the three pieces I received, the mixer and an electric knife (ah, the days of not worrying about all that child safety foolery!).  Oh, such toy heaven!  I remember mixing up chocolate milk in the blender much, I'm sure, to Mom's distress at the mess.  But oh, what fun!  I still get excited (can't you tell?) just pondering over that glorious Christmas Morning.   

  A "working" kitchen for Barbie?  Far out!

The concept of having a "working" kitchen for one of my most cherished toys, Barbie and her pals, was mind boggling!  The "Karosel" was controlled by a button (on right in pic) which made it spin to the desired appliance, then you pushed another button to make it work.  Pure toy genius!  I had many, many happy hours playing with this and the Barbie Gang, but this toy has an extra-special memory tacked onto it.  Before Christmas I was rummaging in the attic and I stumbled upon the Karosel Kitchen (honestly, I did!) and was elated to find that I would be getting this soon.  I didn't let anyone know that I'd discovered my pot o' gold and was counting the days before I'd be using it to help Barbie cook her dinner.  Well, Christmas Morning came and after the dust cleared I realized that my semi-long awaited gift was not among the booty I had acquired.   I awkwardly dropped hints to my Mom, like, hmmm, was something missing?  I could see her light bulb flash on and she abruptly went to talk to my brother.  Very soon after, Gregor walks up to me with something in a bag (hee hee) and told me that Santa just swung by because he "forgot to drop this off earlier". It, of course, was my Karosel Kitchen and the day was saved for Barbie and me.  Ah, Christmas toy ecstasy!  

Well, I hope you enjoyed my little reminiscing party and that it conjured up a couple of happy flashbacks of your own so you can "party on" yourself.