Sears Christmas Catalogue in Hand

Posted by Susanna McLeod Oct 28, 2007

I just love the Christmas season. Everyone seems more relaxed, smiling more often and thinking of others. And every fall, I look forward to the Sears Wish Book landing on my doorstep, with pages and pages of beautiful items. I don’t really want any of them myself, but it makes shopping for family that much easier. The Sears Canada Wish Book this year is a hefty 1084 pages with everything you can think of from A to Z.

Sears in the United States stopped production of the Christmas catalogue in 1993 due to lack of sales. Fourteen years later, the Wish Book is back on the American marketplace but in a much smaller version. Issued this month, the catalogue will have a sparse 188 pages to browse and will also be online.

Canadians are used to shopping by catalogue - we were shopping from our own Eaton’s Catalogues since 1893. The first Sears Catalogue came out in Canada in 1953 through Simpson’s-Sears, under its American parent company, Sears Roebuck. The mail-order catalogue advertised “Allstate car insurance, live baby chicks, saddles and even radiation detectors (Geiger counters).”

Taking over the catalogue section, Sears Canada produced the catalogues from 1978 and on. The cherished Eaton’s Catalogue was discontinued in 1976, and Sears Canada bought the Eaton’s company in 1999.

These Sears Wish Book catalogues just might turn into treasured antiques some day in the future. At least they will give readers a glimpse of how Canadians lived and shopped in this era. For now, I’m going to turn the pages, examining the fancy dishware, sparkling decorations and glitzy pages, and dream of a cozy Christmas.