When you say “Little People” now, people think you’re being all PC and shit.

But in my day, those were midgets (hey I’m not saying progress wasn’t needed, that’s just how it was. If you ask me, and no one ever has, “little people” sounds waaaay more derogatory than midget. Whatevs.). And Little People…

didn’t look like this. This sanitized, impossible to choke on, grossly out of proportion, possessed of arms travesty wasn’t what we were talking about, either.

No, we knew Little People.

The multi-level garage. The school. Even the camper, the object of much of my childhood jealousy:

We played with them and set up worlds around them and sometimes got all creative and put pipe-cleaner arms on them and lost entire afternoons enraptured in their unchanging faces. We put them in our mouths and down heater vents and forgot them in couch cushions.

Best Christmas present I ever got was Little People. Specifically,

the Sesame Street Little People.

I flicked Oscar’s lid for hours. I put Gordon and Susan in bed together. I lost Cookie Monster within days. I was sad that Big Bird’s head didn’t look right.

It was pretty much all I got for Christmas that year.

And I felt so damn lucky I thought my head would explode.