Last night, as if in a hazy dream, a spirit visited me in my chambers — it did not appear malevolent, despite its parachute pants, mullet, and wide lapels. This curious shade hovered around the end of my bed, waiting for my terror to subside, before identifying itself.

“Derek!” it exclaimed with a deep, wavering voice only belonging to the most tortured of the undead, “I come to you to show you the errors of your ways! I Am The Ghost Of The Future Of Christmas Presents Past!”

“Wait,” I said, “aren’t you going a little fast? There’s supposed to be a fat guy, and then a grim-reaper-thing –”

“NO!” the ghost bellowed, glowing flames rising from its aura and the faint tones of Roxette playing in the distance. “I am not here to show you the errors of your whole life — I’m to show you how the presents you had been given in your youth would have been worth more, if not for your reckless ways!”

“Oh,” I replied.

“…and there’s not enough ghosts to go around for everyone, so we do triple-shifts. Christmas is a busy time of year, what with everyone taking vacation…”

I nodded understandingly. Suddenly, the room fell away, leaving me floating in space, as my life flew by, in reverse, until we stopped at Christmas, 1978. We hovered close to the ceiling, as young me unwrapped a large box. Beneath the wrapping paper and cardboard was a giant robot named Raydeen, a toy I had made a big fuss about in Dayton’s a few weeks before. Here he was, in all his 2′ tall glory — one of my favorite toys of the day.

“Your beloved toy — whatever happened to it?” the spirit asked.

“I still have it — it’s really beat up. The fist broke pretty quickly, and I chewed on the rubber point on the shield, and I don’t think it has any more stickers…”

“Do you realize what it would be worth today, if you had not wrecked it?”

“Well, it was the 3rd generation Mattel, without the epaulets, so it’s not as uncommon, but with the box…”

“TELL ME!” the shade demanded.

“Probably around a hundred, hundred-fifty?”

The trailer house we lived in began to swirl and glow, slowly replacing with my grandparent’s basement — Christmas 1980. I’m sitting on the couch, watching little red dots bounce around on a small screen. Little beeps and electronic squeals emitted from the black plastic housing.
“Oh, man, I forgot about that — it’s hockey! Two people could play it, but my brother was a little young still. ”

The ghost gave me a serious look, and asked, “And what happened to that game? Tell me.”

An embarrassed look overtook my face. “Well, a few years later I got a soldering gun, and…”

“AND WHAT?” His preternatural voice boomed.

“Well, I took it all apart — all the LEDs, the switches, I pulled everything off its motherboard, and put them in a box. I think I threw them all away when I moved out.”

“And what of the other handheld video games — all quite collectible — that you owned at the time?”

“Um….well, I took most of those apart, too. Well, Microvision never worked right…the one we got was broken in the packaging, and we couldn’t return it for some reason. I think Mom still has it. ”

“If you still had them,” the ghost said with a chastizing tone, “just THINK of the collection you’d have today!”

The world fell away beneath us again, moving to our house on third street, Christmas 1983. Semi-transparent bue and green action figures were strewn about the floor, as I fiddled with a flimsy blue transparent thing.

“Crystar! Damn, that was a trippy toy!” I exclaimed.

“Just look at all of this — it’s the entire line.” The ghost said.

“I know, I think it was all marked down to nothing at K-Mart before Christmas, to get rid of it — nobody wanted it — and mom bought one of everything. Oh, that castle! It was made out of the same stuff blister-packaging is, so it broke pretty quickly.”

“But you had the entire line?” the ghost demanded.

“I think so — everything that they show on collector’s websites, I had…a couple versions of, I think.”

“And what happened to them?”

“I think I still have some of them in a box, somewhere, but like the castle they got beat up pretty quickly — is that all you’re here for, foul demon, to chastise me for playing with my toys?”

“I’m here to show you the error of your ways!” he shrieked, rattling his chains menacingly. “Those toys would cost you thousands to replace today, when you had them in your grasp once upon a time!”

“Did you ever have kids, cursed spirit?”

“Um….well, I was pretty busy at the antique mall, and…”

“– wait, you’re a dealer? I get it — this is your curse! You get to spend eternity watching kids wreck and ruin these collectibles, so you try and convince parents like me to teach my kids to leave things in the box?”

“Well, would that be so bad?”

I looked at the ghost incredulously.

“At least have them save the packaging — it doubles the value! And keep the Hot Wheels out of the sandbox, nothing good comes of that.”

“Accursed spirit of estate sales and auctions, if you understand one thing, remember this: If it weren’t for the thousands of kids that beat the living snot out of their toys, the few remaining ones wouldn’t be worth so much money. Kids can be taught about collecting, but forcing them to keep their toys in collectible condition is far more cruel than the curse you bear.”

“FAIR ENOUGH,” the spirit bellowed. “I understand that you do not recognize the errors of your ways — and for this, I place a curse on you. ”

“What? Why?! What kind of curse?!?”

“Er…well….OK, I can’t really curse you, but I promise, every time you see a Raydeen go for hundreds on eBay, you’ll feel a little twinge of remorse.”

“Probably so, but I can’t regret the fun I had.”

The world began to swirl and twist, and suddenly I was back in my bed-chambers. I lept from bed and tossed open the sash, to see a small child outside on the walk, marvelling at a mint, unopened McFarlane’s Twisted Christmas action figure.
“You there, child — what day is it?”

“Why, sir, it’s Christmas day!”

“Then open that toy, and play with it — that’s what Christmas is all about!”

“But….but the seconday market value!”

“Child, worry about that when you’re a grownup — today, that evil Santa needs to be free from his blister packaging!”

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Article Tags: Christmas, future, Ghosts, Mattel, McFarlane, past, Present

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