The day after Thanksgiving was catalog day. It seemed the big stores had an agreement with the post office to deliver their catalogs on that day. In our house in the late 40s and early 50s, we got catalogs from three major stores, Sears-Roebuck and Company(Sears, now), Montgomery- Ward(Wards, now), and J.C. Penny. And in our family, there was a pecking order when it came to who got the catalogs first. My Mom was first in line. Then, my sister, Sara, ten years older than me, and then Vickie, my little sister, sixteen months younger than me, and i had to share. Sears was always the prized catalog and the first to looked at. There was so much in it! Clothes, jewelry, housewares,, appliances, sports equipment, and toys. And it was the biggest,,,more than two inches thick. Vickie and I weren't allowed to touch it till Mom and Sara got through with unless they were around. And the other two were also off limits. And sharing it with Vickie wasn't easy. I could care less about dolls, doll houses, tea sets, and baby buggies,,,you know,,,girly stuff. I wanted to look at the cars and trucks, and forts, and cowboy outfits, and football uniforms. Mom stopped many a war between Vickie and me by taking the catalog away. But, the catalogs were the beginning of a process in getting our letters to Santa put together. Television hadn't come to our town so the catalogs were our first look at the latest toys and it was first step in making our wish list for Santa. We'd see things we might want, then look for them in the stores. Then decide what went in our letter to Santa. It seemed all day was spent looking through the catalogs and many more hours would be spent before Christmas.