Ghosts of Christmas presents past on display around P.E.I.

The P.E.I. Museum and Heritage Foundation has dug through its artifacts for some of the items that have brought joy under the Christmas tree in years past, and put together several exhibits.

Some of the items are very old, and others will be well-remembered by some Islanders, but museum curator Matthew McRae said they all speak to their particular time.

"It's something that is indicating a social and cultural moment that may still exist but also might be shifting," said McRae.

"Online shopping, we're not seeing that same kind of habit where people go out to the stores and there's that excitement about seeing what's on the shelves right now."

That excitement was very much a part of two of the toys McRae brought into the Mainstreet P.E.I. studio — Tickle Me Elmo and Cabbage Patch Preemie — which were both the subject of retail frenzy the Christmases they came out, Elmo in 1997 and Cabbage Patch in 1984.

For a time, the foundation was collecting toys of the year, so it has an extensive collection.

'Before Bob Ross'

Fans of painting instructor Bob Ross, whose 1980s painting show has had a resurgence on YouTube, may want to see the display at the Cornwall Library to learn about one of his predecessors in TV art shows.

"Before Bob Ross there was Jon Gnagy, and he used to come on TV and he had a learn-to-draw kit," said McRae.

"It was very popular in 1960."

While most Gnagy kits soon became a collection of pencil stubs and an empty paper pad, the P.E.I. Museum has a pristine set, including the story of why it was never used.

"Their mother normally didn't get them fancy presents but this year, because she had some drawing talent, they gave her the Jon Gnagy set," said McRae.

"It's in perfect condition because she said that she would use old scraps of newspaper to practice with bad pencils, always thinking that someday she'd be good enough to use the Jon Gnagy art set, and then she'd finally draw with it. But it never happened."

Toys through time

Some of the museum's oldest toys are on display at the Murray River Library, including one that likely dates from the turn of the 20th century.

"We have a sewing machine, a child's sewing machine. It's like a miniature version but it works, or at least it did. It's a little bit rusty now," said McRae.

That exhibit also includes a porcelain doll of about the same vintage.

Finding older toys is a challenge, said McRae, and not just because of their age. Christmases of the early 20th century were not the extravaganzas of the 21st.

Those gifts of an earlier time — a box of crayons, a scribbler wrapped around a pencil — were simpler, meant to be used, and are gone to their intended purpose.

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