The Sears Wish Book catalogue: a time honoured tradition

For many who have grown up in North America few things are apt to bring back a flood of holiday nostalgia quite like thinking about the annual Sears Wish Book catalogues of our youth. Produced and distributed well in advance of the “big day” each year, these large, glossy paged tomes were the fodder for many a child’s wildest dreams of what may lay in store for them under the tree come Christmas morning.


{Santa beams his jolly smile festively from the cover of a 1957 Sears Christmas catalogue, an image that I’m sure countless kids were thrilled to see appear in the mailbox in the autumn of that year.}


While Sears and their catalogues have been around for considerably longer, the Wish Book (also known as the Sears Christmas catalogue) itself first debuted in 1933. Stocked with a seemingly overflowing menagerie of everything from holiday decorations to shoes, jewelry to scores of toys, the Wish Book quickly became a beloved publication for families across America and Canada.

Though I have never had the pleasure of holding a vintage copy of a Wish Book in my hands, I do recall the 1980s and 90s versions with a good deal of clarity and many a happy memory. Back in those days (and I’d venture to guess in the decades leading up the eighties) the Wish Book was somewhat different from the iteration that exists nowadays, though of course there were endless similarities too. Yesteryear Christmas catalogues seemed to devote more pages catered directly to children. Perhaps it’s just the perception of my imagination, but I seem to recall a much larger (and more diverse) section of toys in the Wish Books of my youth, compared to those of today.

Like many children the world over, I wrote heartfelt letters to Santa as a youngster, promising him that I had been tremendously good all year and asking for a handful of items (I seem to recall my parents telling us we had to limit the number of things we requested). Though I didn’t honestly always end up getting what I’d asked for, the notion that I could, maybe, just maybe, watch a toy or two materialize from the pages of the Wish Book into a present under the tree was more than enough to fuel my love of Sears’ Christmas catalogue.



{A doll house so pretty I would still be thrilled to be given such a present at the ripe old age of 25, was amongst the offering in the 1947 Wish Book, and no doubt was something that tons of little girls implored Santa for that year.}


Gone are the days of penning notes to St. Nick and of thinking I could hear reindeer hooves stomping on the roof, if I listened carefully enough. What remains however is a soft spot in my heart for the Sears Wish book, which I still eagerly run out to bring home and pour over each year as fall starts to resemble winter.

I dream of one day finding a vintage (circa the 40s or 50s) copy of a Wish Book that my wallet can smile about, but until that day happens (such catalogues have many a fan on sites like eBay, who snap up not only Wish Books but Sears catalogues from other times of the year, too), I know that there a fantastic online source that showcases entire copies of vintage Wish Books.

The aptly named source I’m talking about is Wishbookweb.com, a site that brims with not only scanned copies of Sears Wish Books, but also a handful of other holiday season catalogues from chains such as Spiegel, and Lord & Taylor (with catalogues spanning the decades from the 1930s to the 1980s). The images (such as the ones in this post, which hails from Wishbookweb) on this immensely handy website (it is, for example, a tremendously useful source of images that show women’s, men’s, and children’s clothing from vintage catalogues) are well sized, clear, and chocked to gills with enough images to keep you entertained and fascinated long after the last Christmas stocking has come down.

As the years roll by and no doubt paper copies of old Christmas catalogues become harder to find, it is a joy to know that such a website exists for all those who wish to view (or relieve pleasant memories of) copies of Wish Books from the past.

I personally have this site bookmarked and return to it often throughout the year as a reference source for all manner of vintage items one might encounter in a Sears catalogue. It is, however, at Christmas when I most find myself spending hours flipping through the (virtual) pages of the old Wish Books on that site, imagining the countless people, both children and the young at heart alike, who poured over these Wish Books when they were brand new, fantasizing about the Christmas gifts they most wanted to both give and receive alike.


{No matter your ages, there was always something in the Sears Wish Book that was bound to catch your eye. These lovely tie neck jersey blouses from the pages of the 1945 catalogue might have found themselves on the lists of both mom and big sis alike.}


As the Christmas season descends upon us, I thought this weekend would be the perfect date to post this entry, giving you a few weeks to immerse yourself in these wonderful old catalogues, daydreaming that you could still stock your letters to Santa with items from their pages. If you also look back affectionately at thoughts of the Sears Wish Book, I would love to hear about your Christmas catalogue memories.