It's Christmas morning.

Little ones have tip-toed to the Christmas tree to see what Santa brought. Mom and Dad are sipping their coffee. The world is waking up to another magical holiday with loved ones.

Part of the excitement is not knowing what's beneath that shining wrapping paper. Did Santa hear all of the wishes? Did everyone escape the Naughty List?

Gift-giving is a longstanding holiday tradition, but the gifts of 2019 aren't quite the same as what children of the 20th century received on Christmas Day. Times were different, money was often scarce and sometimes the smallest item left the biggest impression.

Those who were children 60, 70, 80 and even 90 years ago shared with The Press those special Christmas memories from when they were little, in a different era when the world was a different place. We asked, "What is an unusual or unique gift you received for Christmas when you were young?"

It may have been a time ago, but in their answers, it's obvious that the Christmas magic of childhood is something that never disappears, for kids from 1 to 92 and beyond.

Jean Smart, 93, Coeur d'Alene: “I was about 12 when my father and mother gave me my first pair of skis. Winter was such a delight where I grew up in Edmonton, Alberta. One year my father made my sister and I a toboggan. It was exceptionally long, you could easily fit five or six kids on it. Our huge dog sat in front and my sister and I crouched behind him. Every day after school we rode down a big hill in town, across the city golf course and across the frozen river that runs through the middle of Edmonton. The dog would pull the toboggan back across the river and the golf course, but when he got to the steep hill he would drop the rope and wait for us to pull it up the hill. Oh I just adored winter.”

Elsie Harvey, 78, Rathdrum: “When I was 11, my neighbor had an aviary in her yard, and on Christmas morning I was sent on a treasure hunt and found a parakeet that was to be mine, and her name was Bertie Lou. She had something wrong with one foot and it fell off and she used to hop around on one foot and fall off of her perch and I’d go put her back on.”

Dee Cox, 79, Post Falls: “I got a baton, because I wanted to be a majorette. They wrapped it just as is, so I knew what it was. I was about 7."

“Amazing” Jim Dunn, 78, of Hayden: "It wasn’t unusual, it was special. It was the last year that I believed in Santy Claus, and that was because of the gift. I wrote a letter every year to Santy Claus, and this particular year I wrote it and my parents saved it, so I have it laminated. I have a picture of the gift. It was a Hopalong Cassidy suit and a train set. The picture is of my father leaning over the train set assembling it.”

Joan Kirsebom, 82, Post Falls: “The baby doll. I loved her."

Grace Chandler, 95, Hayden: “Everything we bought my dad made us. We never had bought toys. We lived on a big farm, we had a creek that ran through the property. He’d cut one of those little trees down — there were a bazillion. He’d put them in a vise and make us kids skis out of them.”

Leo Slapkauskas, 87, Post Falls: “Anything you give me, I’m blessed."

Joan Slapkauskas, Post Falls: “An avocado sweater and skirt set. I must have been a teenager because I was embarrassed.”

Shirley Collinson, Coeur d’Alene, 83: "I wasn’t very old, about 4. We lived in a rural area on the coast, and down the street was a small dairy. One Christmas, we had a Santa Claus come to our house. I didn’t know until I got older, it was Amel from the dairy down the street. He came up dressed as a Santa Claus, and I was so excited. And I remember I got a little rubber doll, just this tiny rubber doll, and I was just so excited."

David Collinson, Coeur d’Alene, 61: "We got Tonka trucks when I was a kid. My brother buried some in the sand and I jumped on a pile, and I then had a gear shaft right in my foot."

Angelina DeFratus, 73, Post Falls: "It was my first bike, with training wheels. It was just unique, it had streamers on it and everything. It was all decorated. I think I was 8. I’m surprised I can remember that far back!"

Blanche Walker, 99, Coeur d’Alene: “I was in first or second year of school. I wasn’t very big. I received a doll out of the catalog for Christmas. What happened to my doll, well that’s the story. My cousin Mildred came to play with me. She liked my doll. After she went home I couldn’t find my doll. I hunted and hunted for her, even outside and in the barn. Come spring, I noticed an old cook stove we had sitting along the fence by the barn. I opened the bottom drawer. In it was my doll. The doll was made of wood chips and it had gotten wet. The doll was not a doll any longer. I knew my cousin had done it. My dolly was gone, she was just a pile of stuff. My cousin hadn’t gotten anything for Christmas because they had more kids in her family. I cried and cried and my mother said don’t be such a crybaby. In those days you got one gift and that was about it. Everyone was so hard up. Another year my father brought home a great big Christmas tree. He only paid a dollar for it. He cut the tree in half and gave the bottom half to my mother’s brother so his nine kids could have a Christmas tree too.”

Don Pemp, 85, Post Falls: "I wanted a pony when I was 6 years old. Of course, when I was 16 I wanted a pistol. No, I never did (get either). I never got a pony.”

Bobby Pemp, 77, Post Falls: "My dad made everything — dollhouses, furniture, cribs, high chairs, tables, chairs. And my mom made all new doll clothes for us."

Shirley Freund, 90, Coeur d’Alene: "I got a dog one year for Christmas! It was a terrier. It was a good dog. It behaved well."

Gary Williams, 74, Hayden: "I had a box under the tree and I wanted a football. We kept playing with the box waiting for Christmas, but when Christmas came, I opened the box and there was a toaster in there. My parents had punked me on Christmas! They punked their own kid on Christmas. I got other gifts and stuff, but it was a gag thing. You think you got a football, but a toaster!? I don’t want a toaster!”

Helen Schaal, Post Falls, 80: “There was a local competition to get the first Christmas tree set up and in the window on display. My two older sisters — four years older and seven years older — they were really in charge of that. We got a free Christmas tree every year; my mother knew families in the Kings County, Calif. forest. They would bring it to us as a gift, a fresh Christmas tree... One year, there were weather problems, so my oldest sister — very creative — she got a stick, got the local bushes around the neighborhood and drilled holes in this stick and made a tree and put it in the window to be first. And I’ll never forget that.”

Jeanne MacConnell, 79, Coeur d’Alene: “My mother, in the 1920s, was in a family of eight children, farmers in Arkansas, and there was very little money but they ate well at Christmas. It truly was a big gift to get a banana. A banana! Who amongst our people would think about that?”

Jerry Neff, Post Falls: "I had an aunt who lived out in cotton country. When I was a little guy she sent me a little bale of cotton, a little miniature one as a souvenir. Half of it was wrapped in burlap."

Yuki Sacra, 79, Coeur d’Alene: “The Japanese porcelain doll. My mother made the clothes for them, the kimono you know. Those were my favorite gift.”

Doug Gwin, Coeur d’Alene, 95: "I was born in 1924. The first Christmas I remember was probably during the Depression in 1930. We got very practical gifts then: underwear, pajamas, socks. I can’t tell you I got a unique gift of any kind. But the unique Christmas that I had was in 1943. We were in North Africa, I was in the Army and we were waiting for a ship to take us to India. It was raining very heavily on Christmas Day. They told us they had turkeys for us and dressing and all that. We had canvas tents that we ate in. Well, we were in there eating. I don’t know if the stakes pulled up from the ground or the rain was so heavy it collapsed the tent, but the tent fell down on all of us, and there must have been about 50 of us, during our Christmas dinner. We had to fight our way out of that.”

Virginia “Ginni” Briscoe, 94, Coeur d’Alene: “When I was a child in the early 1930s, it was during the Great Depression and my mother would sew doll clothes for my Christmas gifts, but I was always more interested in my brothers’ toy trucks. On Dec. 10, 1949, I received my best Christmas gift — my first son, Scott, was born. He’s getting old, but I’m not!"

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Press reporter Jennifer Passaro contributed to this article.