The ''Sears Wish Book'' was a popular

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a Religion, religious and Culture, cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by coun ...

-themed catalog released annually by the American department store chain

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co., commonly known as Sears ( ), is an American chain of department stores and online retailer founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosen ...

in August or September. The catalog contained toys and other holiday-related merchandise. The first ''Sears Wish Book'' was published in 1933 and was a separate catalog from the annual Sears Christmas catalog.

Sears, Roebuck & Co.

The Sears catalog called the "Big Book" or the "Wish Book" offered customers around the US a chance to wear "city clothes" throughout its 97-year-history. The book sold everything from jewelry to cars to tools to farm equipment to pianos to whole homes. With the huge volume of catalogs, Sears contracted the printing out to Cuneo Press until 1928 when they switched to RR Donnelley. RR Donnelley built the building at 3301 W Arthington St. to print the biannual catalogs. Donnelly printed them at this site until Sears discontinued their catalog. The facility printed up to 7 million copies of their catalogs each year. In 1993,

discontinued publishing their big-book catalogs in the United States and the Wish Book noticeably started to diminish in size. By 2005, Sears had completely abandoned anything resembling the original Wish Book and was producing the 2.5-by-2.5-inch ''Little Big Wish Book'' The mini-catalog was given to customers at Sears Auto Centers, placed inside packages that were purchased on Sears.com and Landsend.com, and was included inside the packaging of in-home deliveries. In 2007,

once again created a holiday gift catalog more reminiscent of its predecessor, however, it was still considerably smaller than the original ''Wish Book'' at only about 100 pages. This was a stark contrast to the 300-plus page catalog previously produced. According to the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...

at that time, the Sears Wish Book was considered as a holiday treat in itself by generations of children who were hoping for the best on Christmas morning. In the 2007 edition of the catalog, half of the total number of pages was devoted to

toys and the remainder focused on other store items including appliances, tools, clothes and jewelry. In the 2010 edition, Sears Christmas Wish Book went mobile so customers would be able to access their catalog via smartphone devices. Sears Holdings, the owner of Sears and

Kmart Kmart ( ), formerly legally registered as Kmart Corporation, now operated by Transformco, is a department-store chain and online retailer in the United States and Territories of the United States, its territories. It operates four remaining Kma ...

, announced that they would be bringing back the Sears Wish Book in 2017 both online, mobile, and print editions. This edition is only 120 pages and closely resembles the Wish Books from 2007.

Sears Canada

Sears Canada distributed big-book catalogues, including the ''Wish Book'', until the company's dissolution in 2018. In 2012, Sears Canada chief Calvin McDonald hand-delivered

catalogs to mark the 60th Anniversary of the Sears Wish Book. Sears Canada launched an iPad app for the 2013 Christmas Wish Book which was at the time ranked as the number one free iPad app in Canada in the Catalogue category.Sears Canada launches its updated shoppable iPad application with the Christmas Wish Book
/ref>

References

{{reflist, 30em

External links

Christmas Catalogs and Holiday Wishbooks (Website)
- Over 300 Christmas Catalogs and Holiday Wishbooks from Sears, JCPenney, and Montgomery Ward.
Wishbook Web
- online scans of pages from several past Wish Books and other Christmas catalogs

- online history of the Sears Christmas Wishbooks Sears products and services Christmas economics Catalogues 1933 introductions 1933 establishments in the United States