Unsung: The Sears Wish Book, a ghost of Christmas past

The first Sears Christmas Book, in 1933, was a modest 87 pages. It offered fruitcakes and Mickey Mouse watches and live canaries. By 1968, the catalog had ballooned to 608 pages, and sold quilted robes and copper fondue pots and Electric Football games. That year, Sears retitled it the Wish Book, which was what consumers had been calling it for decades. Wish Book was the perfect name: From 1933 until 1993 - when Sears announced it would no longer publish its Christmas ham-sized monoliths (then continued to dabble, in fits and starts) - the Wish Book was so central to holiday expectations it read like a catalog of middle-class aspiration.