A Cabbage Patch Christmas
Every Christmas, there's one hot toy or game that is all the rage: XBox 360, Tickle Me Elmo, Nintendo, Teddy Ruxpin. People camp out for days ahead, trample over people to get their hands on their item, and pay top dollar to give someone a Merry Christmas. This entire phenomenon can be traced directly back to the Cabbage Patch Dolls. First created in 1976 by an art student named Xavier Roberts, the handmade dolls started off slowly and sold quite well. Roberts came up with the cutesy-wutesy idea of "adoption papers" and "official birth certificates" and people went "Awwww" to the tune of $60 million in the first year. By 1980, the demand had begin to build and dolls were reselling for 100 times over the original price. Toy companies were clamoring for the chance to mass reproduce the toys and Roberts eventually went with Coleco in 1982. The world was about to be flooded with Cabbage Patch dolls. Everyone remembers what happened next: the lines of peop...