Famous Canadians' favourite Christmas gifts

Kurt Browning 
World-Champion Figure Skater
I was about eight years old when I got my Hot Wheels. They came with a big plastic wheel that opened up so you could store all your cars in there, and this simple, orange plastic track that only fits one car. I had a lot of fun playing with it that way...until I found a little plastic thing that the track sits on to put it at different angles, so you can hook it up to a counter or the piano and then the cars can go down a big hill. Once I did that, the whole Hot Wheels orange-track experience became exponentially more fun.

I had a serious close call with them once when my older cousin came to visit. He took my BB gun and thought it would be fun to line up all my toys and shoot them. I saved my Hot Wheels from him by running quickly and getting my dad. I'm amazed that I still have about 12 or 13 of my cars from the glory days of Hot Wheeling, and they still work! Now I play with them with my son, Gabe, who's four. So, here I am, 33 years later, still playing the same game: which car goes the farthest?

Elizabeth May
Leader of the Green Party of Canada
The toy that I remember the most – the toy that I asked for very specifically, and that I kept the longest, and that I took on all the family trips – was a doll I got when I was about four, maybe five. I'd asked my parents for her for Christmas, and I was very precise about it: I wanted a life-size baby doll that was realistic, with eyes that closed. I named her Mary after my godmother and she went with us everywhere. I carried her around and she was almost as big as me when I got her!

I was very conscientious as a "mother." I never lost her, and I even brought her with me on two trips to England. My dad's parents lived in England, and in those days, the way you went to England was by boat. So my doll and I had two trips back and forth to England aboard the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth. I remember that because the doll's name was Mary and my name was Elizabeth, so there was an identification with a queen on each trip. I remember holding her up to be sure she was always looking out the windows as we travelled, making sure she could see out of the taxi as we went down to New York City to get on the ship.

And I still have her! She's still got all her arms and legs and toes, and she sits in my bedroom in Ottawa, on a little wicker chair that I used to have when I was a baby. I'm very sentimental. I actually still have most of my toys from when I was little.


Page 3 of 3 -- On page 1, Rick Mercer shares the hilarious tale of his dysfunctional Easy-Bake Oven.