Electronic Christmases

Back in the day electronic Christmases simply meant, “Don’t forget to buy the batteries!”  When I received my remote control car it had a couple of wires attached to it which required four c-cell batteries to supply the power.  I was about nine at the time.  Luckily, Mom remembered to make the purchase.  They powered the unit for about thirty-minutes before giving up.  I was tethered to the car and followed it around the asbestos tiled floor in our basement.

When I purchased a similar car for my boys thirty years later, the wires were gone.  Technological improvements made the “attached wires” obsolete. We had the opportunity to purchase rechargeable batteries.  Rechargeable batteries required a  charging station. The theory was that the charging station and rechargeable batteries would pay for themselves over time, because you could avoid the purchase of additional batteries.  The problem was you had to remember where you stored the rechargeable loading station, and you had to recharge the batteries before the exact moment you wished to use the car.  Pre-planning was required, but six and nine-year old boys know nothing about pre-planning.

If you lost it, you had to buy another.  New charging stations and rechargeable batteries made the purchase of throw-away c-cell batteries look like a “good deal”.

Over time new battery options became the norm.  Double A, triple A, D, and my personal favorite, the nine volt, were required by all sorts of toys and mini-appliances. The advantage of the nine-volt was it was required in most smoke detectors.  Removing the smoke detector battery to temporarily operate a new toy became one of our Christmas traditions.   While this required letting our smoke detector guard down, it allowed Christmas to resume as planned.

We had  Barbie cars and houses, castles, cameras, various flashlights, Game Boys, ray-guns, light sabers, trains, planes and automobiles,  and they all needed power.  There didn’t seem to be any method to the madness as battery requirements were concerned, in fact, I came to believe the battery companies were developing new toys to enhance the sale of batteries.

Ruth and I celebrated Christmas with David and his family earlier this week.  David, Brady and I each received a battery powered lantern.  I plan to place mine in the glove compartment of my golf cart as I seldom need gloves in Florida. There’s plenty of room for the lantern.  The trouble is, the lanterns each require three, “not included”,  triple A batteries  and we had one.  One is useless.  Ruth went out and purchased a supply of triple A’s the following day.   The lantern works great!

One final thought on this two days before Christmas blog.  Take a last minute assessment of the gifts  you’ve purchased this year.  Do any require batteries?  If so, I’d wager they are not included.  Jump in the car and get those batteries right now.  They make great stocking stuffers.  If you don’t, you may find yourself disassembling your fire alarms, and believe me, the constant “beeeep”, “beeeep”, “beeeep”, is going to get on your nerves after an hour or two.