My memories of Thanksgivings when our children were little and our holiday hunt to find a Furby

By John Toth

The Bulletin

I sat down to write a column about something else, but this is, after all, the last Bulletin before Thanksgiving.

It represents the start of the holiday season and a time when families get together and try to steer the conversation away from politics, watch football all day and eat as much as they can possibly stomach. Then they prepare for Black Friday.

Black Friday isn’t what it used to be, changed by online shopping forever. It was a lot of fun to wake up before sunrise and camp in front of a store for a chance to get the deal of a lifetime.

I never did that, but I know people who did. I was always too late for the door-buster sales that required the use of military-style tactics to get to the grand prize. I did see video on the nightly news of the warriors fighting it out for that flat-screen TV for only $250, or a new video game system of which there was only a half dozen per store.

Or that hard-to-find Furby, the toy everybody wanted, but few could find. It was a great marketing gimmick to build up the fervor over the Furby.

Our family wasn’t exempt from this craze, but my mother-in-law worked for a big-box retailer and could get her hands on three Furbys without me being required to go out on Friday morning and fight my way through the front lines.

The main reason to buy Furbys was because of their apparent “intelligence’’, reflected in their ability to develop language skills. Furbys can communicate with one another via an infrared port located between their eyes.

The hysteria continued for several years, in part because Furbys were so customizable, making it one of the hottest toys of the late ‘90s and early 2000s.

The Toth kids were assured each would get a Furby on that very special Christmas, when the manufacturer either underestimated the demand or decided that a few news reports about people smacking each other in the head as they tried to buy the toy was actually good for business.

Our way was non-violent. We got the toys and hid them until Christmas. Our kids never expected to get one, since dad didn’t come home any night before Christmas all scratched up with his shirt torn. They accepted that this was going to be a Furby-less Christmas.

That is, until they tore off the wrapping paper and found that they were now each the owner of the rare looking critter. The screaming was ear-shattering. The jumping up and down lasted for many minutes. They were on top of the world.

Then they started playing with it. They never got the toys to talk to each other. Also, my daughter, the smallest in the group of three kids (she has two older brothers), heard Furby complain that it was thirsty.

She poured her left-over orange juice in its beak, quickly short-circuiting every piece of electronics inside it. Furby died a sudden death.

The other two didn’t last all that long, either, but that’s not the point. The real message here is that being able to give the kids Furbys was an almost superhuman achievement that we were able to pull off with a little insider help.

Our part was played perfectly, even if the Furbys made a quick exit, and I was thankful for that.

I was and still am thankful for many other things, like the fact that our children grew up healthy and happy in an environment that was not always there for me when I was their age. Sharon, The Bulletin’s holiday season editor, and I are blessed that we were able to provide a loving home for our children.

We also feel blessed that we can still do after 31 years what we love - publishing The Bulletin -  for which we have all our readers and advertisers to thank.

We wish you all a very happy and safe Thanksgiving from the bottom of our heart.