All I Want for Christmas is Grubby

In 1985, I stared out the window on Christmas Eve night.  I waited and waited for Santa.  Our family usually exchanged presents on Christmas Eve as tradition--when my mother was a kid, grandpa worked at the paper mill in Antioch, California on Christmas Day and so they celebrated on Christmas Eve.  When I was a kid, though we opened presents on Christmas Eve, Santa brought a present on Christmas Day.  The present was usually the one thing we really wanted--something major like a bike.  In 1985, our family was really poor (who I am kidding, we're still not wealthy), the kind of poor where we took potatoes off the sides of fields that the farmers had missed when we lived in Kuna.

On that Christmas Eve night in 1985, I saw a red flashing light in the sky, and I swore it was Rudolph leading the sleigh--no lie.  As an adult, I know it was a plane, but child-me still can feel the magic I felt that night as I prayed for Grubby, a companion toy to my toy Teddy Ruxpin--which I assume I had gotten as a birthday gift earlier that year.  Teddy Ruxpin was the plush, robotic, talking bear who worked on D batteries and cassette tapes that went in his back.  When you hit play, his eyes and animatronic mouth sang along.  Grubby was Teddy's friend--a caterpillar worm thing that was orange.  And all I wished for that Christmas was a friend for Teddy.  With both of them, you connected them with a cable, and they sang duets.  Here is a video I found of the two singing with each other on you tube:




When I awoke on Christmas morning in 1985 and unwrapped my gift from Santa, he brought me a Grubby. My dad loaded Grubby with batteries and plugged him into Teddy, and Grubby didn't work. In my childhood, I can't remember a bigger disappointment. Okay, that's a lie, I came home once to find that my dad had sold my pony to the neighbor while I was at school, and I was heartbroken that he was gone.  So, other than the pony theft, Grubby not working made my heart break.  Okay, there was one other time.  I had a Michael Jackson microphone that was like Mr. Microphone, and it had an FM transmitter in it, so you could tune it to an FM station that was not in use or one that was in use and sing along to the music.  The microphone  had speakers attached, and  I sang and sang and sang my heart out to anyone that would listen.  This went on for a few weeks, and one day, the microphone disappeared.  So other than the pony theft and the mysterious Michael Jackson microphone disappearance, Grubby not working properly on Christmas morning was my most heartbreaking childhood memory.

The problem was that I don't think there were any other Grubbys left at the store, and I know my dad took it back, but he never returned with another one.  So Teddy Ruxpin had to live alone for the rest of his life.  And my Christmas wish never came true.  That Santa is a real asshole.