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Comment by mjburgess | Hacker News Reader

Amongst the upper working class, the argos catalogue featured as a central part of holiday (christmas esp.) life until perhaps the mid-2000s.

You could walk into any argos and take one of the 1000pg+ catelogues of massive pallets of them, and paw them over days.

The working class, typically unsentimental in the UK, would then purchase the child's designated item for xmas. The pretence of "santa clause", i think, more often a middle class ritual.

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Haha yes. I would spend months looking through that catalogue in the lead up to Christmas, comparing and cross checking items and descriptions and cost. I remember some items always felt out of reach like the Casio TV remote watch[1].

Someone has also scanned almost all Argos magazines from 70s to mid 90s - https://retromash.com/argos/

1: p100 item 14 https://issuu.com/retromash/docs/argossuperstore-1995-autumn...

Very fond memories of sitting on the floor in my granny's terraced house, looking through the argos and index catalogues, and dreaming of what I might ask for for Christmas. 1989, and the drop out "innovations" catalog was what I was really searching for, with its incredible technological marvels like Olivetti personal organisers.

Kind of off topic but the actual "Santa isn't real" moment for me was that some children really believed it. To us, it was always on the same level as the fairies (led by BDFL Tinkerbell, obviously) in my grandmother's garden or the tooth fairy: fun to imagine but clearly, literally, make-believe and I thought everyone was just playing up to the same fun thought-experiment.

And, indeed, the Argos catalogue was, for me, pored over all year round. In turn I discovered the multi-volume RS print catalogue and real desire set in. Sadly Santa didn't have a trade account so took a while to scam an account that permitted no-lower-limit free shipping.

I had the same feeling about God at a Christian camp.

Most children do not know what a "thought-experiment" is. I actually feel very sorry for you and other children who never believed.

Well I didn't know it was called that at the time. If I recall, a book, perhaps Alice in Quantumland, or some other similar book named the idea for me eventually. I also didn't know how what oxygen was called, once upon a time, and somehow managed to breathe.

Anyway, I feel grateful to my parents that they managed to feed imagination without deceit, and I also appreciated that gifts came from my parents, some requested, some unbidden and all with love.

You said "I thought everyone was just playing up to the same fun thought-experiment" which implies you did that thinking at the time. I'm not questioning whether you knew how to breathe or understood the mechanics of it. I can only go by the information you provided.

Your reply even shows you don't understand the magic of Christmas that some children felt.

> I feel grateful to my parents that they managed to feed imagination without deceit

You're framing this deceit as a bad thing. What do you think about parents pretending a child's spoon is an airplane?

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