Toy shortage

My adult children each get money, a tin of biscuits, tin of chocolates and bottle of spirits. Started that after I found the £150 saucepan set I gave them still in boxes in the cupboard 3 years later!
DGC each get £50 cash for the older ones and presents to that value for the little ones. Plus a selection box each.
Family I don't buy for anymore just send cards. Too expensive now I'm retired as I have 3 sisters 12 nieces and nephews, and 15 great nieces n nephews. Easier to stop buying for them all when we moved away too.

After several Christmases of watching the younger members of the family tear open parcels and barely glance at what was inside before moving onto the next parcel I became a bit cynical about the whole thing.
Children have so many toys nowadays and need a separate playroom to store them all.
When I was a child only posh children had playrooms.

What is particularly lovely GG13 is that our grown up children swoop on their old toys with a delighted “oh I remember this! I loved it!” They are then filled with joy to see their own little ones enjoying them!

It doesn’t owe us anything though as that was one of the originals bought in the 70s !

I am currently on the hunt for one which sadly has packed up- the Hickory Dickory Dock wind up clock radio.
Despite my husband’s best efforts it no longer plays the song. It’s not made any more so I must track down an old one online.

JenniferEccles

Although there has, understandably been lots of talk of plastic tat on here, not all toys fit that category.

On recommendation many years ago, we bought Fisher Price toys for ours and although not cheap, they have lasted and lasted and are now being enjoyed by our small grandchildren when we look after them here.

A lot of the toys are over 40 years old, still going strong, so were well worth every penny.

Totally agree, we have Fisher Price toys that have been played with by all our children and now regularly played with by all GC. The same apples to Lego/Duplo.

Although there has, understandably been lots of talk of plastic tat on here, not all toys fit that category.

On recommendation many years ago, we bought Fisher Price toys for ours and although not cheap, they have lasted and lasted and are now being enjoyed by our small grandchildren when we look after them here.

A lot of the toys are over 40 years old, still going strong, so were well worth every penny.

I usually give my granddaughters a magazine subscription or a trip out to theatre or day out Make them something (cooking apron with name on, cushion for bedroom, patchwork quilt) something eco friendly - bug house or caterpillars to rear into butterflies, birdfeeders - they have enough plastic tat!

HillyN

I passed a skip outside a house where the family had recently moved away and was shocked to see discarded children's toys still in their Christmas wrapping paper. If it wasn't for the fact that it had rained and the boxes were soggy, I might have retrieved them. Such a waste!

That’s awful, HillyN. Surely people know that some children would get nothing at Christmas if it weren’t for local charities collecting donated toys and distributing them. Presumably they just don’t care.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

I passed a skip outside a house where the family had recently moved away and was shocked to see discarded children's toys still in their Christmas wrapping paper. If it wasn't for the fact that it had rained and the boxes were soggy, I might have retrieved them. Such a waste!

I too know that I spend too much, but I admit I’ve got less inclined to buy a load of rubbish since three of them are now living with us, and I have to live with the consequences of my reckless spending.
We are lucky enough to have a playroom, but that’s not a whole lot of good if they can’t get in there to play.
I am more than happy to buy books, games and puzzles, dolls and role play toys for the youngest, clothes, and things which will get use, but I really dislike all the poor quality plastic stuff, and I’m going to do my best to avoid it.

Welbeck. There was a shortage of teddy bears in 1949 so the cost was so high I had to pay it off at a shilling a week.

Mulberry Bush is an online toy company, many educational, personalised and wooden toys, my order will be placed soon.

I am guilty of buying far too much stuff for my DGC at Christmas and birthdays, though I do choose carefully and think it is things they want. This year I am going to work on the " something they want. Something they need. Something to wear and something to read" principle.
I have also recently discovered Bigjig toys. Virtually all wood, though with some delightful rag dolls with clothes to buy. And made in UK. Well worth looking at as hardly any plastic.

Perhaps we should go back to a nut, satsuma and a lump of coal which might appeal to the bah-humbugs?

Christmas is for the non religious amongst us for children, leaving out treats for Santa and his reindeer, the wonderment in their eyes on Christmas morning when he has been. The excitement leading up to the day, the nativity at school and church, the carols, the sweet treats etc.

Gifts do not have to be plastic tat there are many alternatives, books, puzzles, colouring sets and age appropriate computer games.

I hope that under our family trees there are gifts aplenty (hopefully something for me also)

I've been impressed by my DD, who nearly always buys her baby's toys and clothes secondhand, usually from local Facebook groups. The bargains she's had - some not even opened, sold at a small fraction of the price - just go to show what an awful lot of waste there is.

I have to admit I once spent ages in the run up to one Christmas scouring the shops for the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles DS had set his heart on. As I stood in front of yet another empty shelf (in Woolworths - those were the days!), a voice behind me said it must be my lucky day. A young staff member had just wheeled up a trolley with boxes full of the things, and handed me one of each before we got flattened in the rush.

Plastic tat they are, but all my DGS are getting plenty of play now of the three that have survived.

I was happy with my older sisters bike that my dad painted a different colour, a colouring book and a stocking with a tube of smarties and an orange in it. That was the 70s when all the kids were out in the streets iny Xmas Day. Maybe this year when they can't get their hands on all the toys "they have to have" they might appreciate Xmas far better.

I'm a sucker for my GC. Whatever they want I will move heaven and earth to get plastic tat or not. Happily, they never ask for anything but I keep my eyes and ears open when I'm around them. Always been lucky so far and I get such a kick out of indulging them (and my kids).

We were fed up with the DC asking for things they knew nothing about but had seen on TV adverts. We told them that if they asked for anything like that, it would immediately be put on a banned list. That stopped them from asking for things they didn't really want, and concentrated their minds wonderfully.

I think it's all down to lazy parents! We used to magically open presents that we secretly wished for or wanted all year, and our parents used to magically know what they were!.BECAUSE THEY LISTENED TO US AND TALKED TO US INSTEAD OF BURYING THEIR FIZZOGS IN THEIR PHONES! ha ha ha! Lesson #1 you bad parents.....did I dare to say that out loud?....

I hate Christmas anyway, but every year the whole build-up just seems to start earlier and earlier. And no, I've never gone over the top with presents. I only buy for my immediate family - son, daughter and their parents, my inlaws and my grandson, and it's one present each. I think some parents now go way over the top with piles and piles of presents under the tree just so they can show off on social media. And most of them probably get themselves into debt to do so and spend most of the next year trying to pay it all off. It's all a lot of commercialised nonsense and yet so many people fall for it.

We buy vouchers for a visit to the theatre, childrens' farm etc as they are so expensive for a family to visit. We do a stocking for them but usually something like hair bands, small kaleidoscope, small Lego pack etc. Within the adult family we have Secret Santa with a maximum of £50.

There were no TV ads to fuel ‘must-haves’ in my day - I’m sure that’s what gives the impetus to a lot of it.

I once had a shock lesson in the power of TV toy ads over children. A dd was barely 4 when we were stuck in an American hotel room for several hours in between flights.

Of course the TV went on, and there was an ad for a ‘Baby-Skates Doll - You Can Make Her Skate!’ It was just a battery powered doll on roller skates - you could almost guarantee that a child would lose interest after half an hour.

At least 6 months later, we were back in Oman where we were living at the time, and blow me, there in a supermarket was a stack of these boxed dolls.

DD’s eyes (she couldn’t yet read) lit up - ‘Baby-skates!’ I couldn’t believe she’d remembered after so,long.

Of course she wanted one, but no way - we never bought toys except for birthdays and Christmas anyway.

a five shilling teddy in 1949 was a quality bear.

Children get far to much anyway these days and once they go to school they don’t have so much time to play.
When I was a child in the 1920s and 30s we only got one or two toys at Christmas. I still have my baby doll from when I was seven. Because of shortages and lack of money after the war my husband made many wooden toys for our children and some of those toys, little cooker, ironing board, kitchen cupboard, train and lorry are now being played with by our great grandchildren. My son, 73, still had his teddy bear for which I had to pay five shillings in 1949.

Has anyone considered that these (mainly) women piling their cars with toys, may be shopping for a charity that gives gifts to those children who would otherwise have nothing?

If you haven't considered this, please do - because I'm one of those women (not in Newcastle, but a bit further south).

We buy as soon as we can before Christmas so that we can wrap and label each present with its content, and that is one of the many jobs done towards providing some Christmas cheer to those who would otherwise have none.

Next piling of cars will be Christmas food that can be kept in the freezer - but no doubt a thread will appear on here criticising that too.

You have no idea why those people were piling their cars, no idea at all.