The Sears Christmas Wish Book

When Christmas Came in the Mailbox

Long before Amazon trucks rumbled down our hollers, Christmas arrived in a much quieter way — tucked in the mailbox between the electric bill and the coal company coupon. It was the Sears Christmas Wish Book, better known across the mountains as the Wish Book.

That catalog didn’t just show things. It showed possibility.

Mama would set it on the kitchen table like it was made of glass, smoothing the cover with her apron. The kids circled like hungry kittens, waiting their turn. Daddy pretended not to care, but somehow, he always ended up flipping to the tools before the night was over.

The Wish Book smelled like fresh ink and big dreams. Boys turned straight to the toy trains. Girls lingered over dolls with real eyelashes. Teenagers stared at bicycles nobody in the holler had ever actually seen in person.

Most families couldn’t afford the things in the book — not when coal was low and doctor bills were high — but that didn’t dim the joy. If anything, it made the dreaming sweeter.

Children would fold the corners of pages to mark their wishes, even though Mama reminded them gently:

“Now young’uns… Santa brings what he can.”

But still — wishing was free. And in those days, that was enough.

Parents studied the pages, too, hunting for something practical they might manage to buy: a coat to make it through winter, a pair of Sunday shoes, a doll with a soft cloth body, a pocketknife for a boy turning into a young man.

Come Christmas morning, the living room might not match the glossy pages of the Wish Book — but it always matched the heart of the home. Maybe a peppermint stick, a rag doll Mama sewed by lamplight, or a wooden truck Daddy carved after his shift at the mines. Mountain kids learned early that joy wasn’t about getting everything you circled — it was about being loved enough that someone tried.

And that Wish Book? It stayed around long after Christmas. It became paper dolls… craft paper… fire starters… even book covers for school. Nothing in Appalachia ever went to waste.

Ask anybody who grew up in those years, and they’ll smile a knowing smile: The Wish Book was magic — not because of what it sold, but because of what it stirred inside us.