Must-have toys? You are pulling my Lego
THE must-have toys for Christmas were announced on Thursday.
This is something that bugs me because I’ve often wondered how we get to be adults and still manage to retain a healthy sense of optimism despite, as children, being disappointed every single Christmas by toys that looked brilliant in the TV ads, but turned out in reality to be underwhelming, useless, plastic bits of junk. Usually with bits missing. Lego was the exception. Yes, it was plastic. But with creative imagination and construction skills, it could be turned into a magical castle, a rocket, a robot, a trailer for Action Man to hang out in, anything you wanted it to be. Strangely, I had a bit of an obsession with making jails. Not sure why,
because back when I was constructing them, there were none of those weird-looking Lego people to populate my penitentiaries. Mind you, I did get caught shoplifting in Boots, aged 12, after my friend made me nick some bottlegreen nail polish and a false nails kit, so maybe my prison-building thing was a premonition. Thank goodness for my Lego though, and my cassette recorder (my BEST – even better than Lego – Christmas present of all-time, at the time). They were the ever-giving gifts that held up my spirits when, as punishment for stealing – as well as putting my parents through the ignominy of picking me up from the police station – I was locked in my bedroom every night, with Donny Osmond on loop. Fast-forward to the 2000s, by which time I had two children of my own to buy disappointing presents for. Before I knew any better, I used to act on the hype generated by the “must-have” toys’ list.
One particularly memorable year – for all the wrong reasons – I opted for a Peter Pan Tree House Island playset for my eldest, who was then just threeand-a-half. It was almost impossible to assemble, had a vital bit missing, absorbed most of the day and prompted a distinctly far from festive argument between my husband and I as to whose idea it was to buy it.
There were tears. There was a heartfelt, “I hate Peter Pan. And I hate his stupid, RUBBISH island” from the recipient. I just looked on eBay, BTW, and there’s a mint-condition 2003 (same year as ours) Peter Pan Island currently on sale for £119! All intact, I hope.
Talking of which, I recall another festive fiasco back in the 1970s when my youngest brother received Stretch Armstrong – a naked wrestler figure, save for a pair of trunks – that you could have a tug of war with and watch him streeeeeetch and streeeeeetch. An updated version is among this year’s must-haves.
My brother must have been disappointed when, after he whacked me around the head with Stretch, I set about the rubbery figure with a carving knife. Neither of us missed him. All he ever did was stretch anyway. One day a must-have, the next a disappointment.
That’s Christmas all summed up.
Toys look great in ads but turn out to be junk