Let’s face it – our love of Black Friday is deeply rooted in our childhood anticipation for the toys Santa promised to bring. I’m pretty sure that Amazon’s wishlist feature can be traced back to the hours spent pouring over the annual toy catalogs with crayons, circling everything that we wouldn’t mind finding under the tree. And every year there was one toy that was more eagerly anticipated than the others, the one that would make our friends green with envy and bring us everlasting happiness. The memory of that toy lust even spawned A Christmas Story, cementing a nostalgic place in pop culture for Ralphie’s obsession with the Red Rider BB Gun for all time. We all remember what it was like to want that one perfect toy so very much!

We thought it would be fun to take a look at what those hottest toys have been throughout the last century and ended up going all the way back to 1903. What toy was your favorite?

You can click on the graphic below to see the full-size version.

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