That is draw on a lifetime of memories! yes times have change so much what we had as did as kids would not even be considered now. Just after the war in the 1950’s no ready made toys so had to either make things like a dandy (wow there is an old word only oldies understand) or invent our own games such as getting a long stick and bending into a bow and another as an arrow, Never properly worked but fun anyway. another game we played was searchlight “He” everyone hid at night and had to be spotted by a torch. No computers or mobile phone back then and police walking the beat. If luck the local park had a swing and slide and that was about it.
Christmas dinner and afterwards tabletop fireworks and sparklers good times back then
My father made toys for me. One was a wooden cart big enough to ride on to tracks on the fields.
I loved “Bagatelles”…like a flattish pinball machine you held on your knee…and, you’d pull a knob back, at the bottom, on the right, and let it go and shoot your silver ball all over the little curved barriers and bells, for absolutely no reason at all.
I had a little, dark blue police pedal car, with (cardboard wrapped) “Ever Ready” batteries to light the headlights. It was taken away from me and crushed and I had to pay for the general costs and a fine not exceeding £1 11s & 6d. Okay…I’m fibbing. It was not used enough by me, so my mum and dad gave it away to the local children’s hospital. Dad never looked so silly as he did, in that pedal car, with his knees shooting up and down!
My “Slinky” (A.K.A. "The Silliest Spring On Earth!) didn’t seem to know what to do, so I demonstrated falling down the stairs and hurting myself lots of times, just to get it to wise up to it’s reason for existing. The Slinky laughed at me and just stayed there, on the top stair, just as stupid as it was when I started, and saying things to me like, “You’ve made this the best Christmas ever…thank you, thank you. Again! Again!” I might have been doing something wrong, of course.
My dad got a new hammer for Christmas, but he sent it back because the instructions were in Spanish!
Such fond memories! 
My father, who was a bit of a hoarder, used to repair TV’s (amongst other things), which meant we had lots of the old wooden veneer carcasses with glass and grilles in them. They were great for keeping hamsters in.
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The heading confused me because it sounds more like “what Christmas presents did you get?”
We didn’t have much money so my Dad made me a doll’s cot from offcuts of wood I guess and painted it pale blue. My Mum made a pillow and matching bedspread and sheet for it. I played with that for years.
An Aunt bought me a Helen Shapiro Christmas annual when I was about 9 but I was too young for it and was very disappointed.
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I was never keen on Slinkys especially in a single storey house until I discovered that if you held them by one end fully stretched then let go - the bottom of the spring never moved downward until the spring was fully compressed. For some reason that absolutely fascinated me.
I used to convert old wooden TV or radiogram cabinets for my kids for their mice and hamster pets until the day that we discovered them enthralled by the sight of the daddy eating the babies.
Yep. We kinda went off the idea of hamsters after a short number of years for the same reason.
IIRC (and the memory is hazy), I think I got my Slinky to go down the stairs for a bit. I loved my Slinky. Just moving my hands up and down alternately, moving the spring from one hand to the other entertained me.
I also loved my Hula Hoop. Big time entertainment. I could twirl it around my arm. I could use it like a jump 
rope. I sometimes used two at a time. What fun.
The thing.about slinkies, @butterscotch @Ian_Haines , as those of us who owned one know all too well, is that when they get into a tangle, it’s a complete nightmare to get it back to normal!!!
Another toy…gyroscopes. Used to love those.
Wanted to but myself a small steam engine (still do in fact), but can’t really justify the cost.
Good lord RoseRed,did your Aunt dislike you lol.
We used to go stickle back hunting using a fishing net and a jar.
I made my own go-cart,my dad was so impressed.
Then some gitbag stole it.
Mine went the same way…so, we put it on the roof, took the lid off the bin and made it throw itself away!
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Didn’t stop me from trying to bend it back into shape. I seem to recall a plastic slinky at some point. Also if you coil the first slinky with a second one at the last spiral, you can sometimes get it to go down higher steps.