I am VERY happy our two children are out of the buy-me-that-toy-for-Christmas phase; I'm sure they both wish their father were as well, but you can't have everything and in my house that's a lesson you can't learn often enough.
A decade or so ago, I endured the traipsing from store to store in search of Furby, an object whose appeal eluded me and that still eludes me. Our little girl wanted one and that was good enough for me. I think she ended up with no more than two though my recollection is that there were battalions of different models of these little dust bunnies available. I was always proud I resisted the temptation to train it to speak incredibly rude sentences, but only just.
She, and we, collected beanie babies with a little more vigor than we pursued Furby, but their saving grace (when was the last time that phrase was used in connection with them?) was that you collected them all year long, they weren't specifically tied to this time of year (I keep visualizing the Gift of the Magi at the original Nativity where each of the Wise Men gives the Baby Jesus a different Beanie Baby.)
I know I've gotten old when I recoil in dismay at this year's must-have, mucho-buzzed-about toy, Zhu-Zhus, a robotic rodent (so much for alliteration; it's actually a mechanical hamster) that neither eats nor poops but does all the stuff between those two actions and whose scarcity has driven the price into the stratosphere for moms and dads shopping for their special someone.
Zhu-Zhus are actually going, at on-line auctions, for more (by two and three fold) than it costs to donate for the care and feeding of a third-world child, or (dare I say it?) one much closer to home (ask your local equivalent of Children and Family Services department). I'm sure you'll be as excited as I am to discover when you visit their website that the Zhu Zhu pets (notice the absence of the hyphen? I think that means they are related to but NOT identical with, a Zhu-zhu hamster) have their own blog!! (I think it's worth an extra exclamation point).
I'm not sure how anyone can walk past one of the bell-ringers with the kettle this season and NOT put something in for those in need if they've already given a zhu-zhu a good home. And perhaps, in the spirit of the season, I should take it a little easier on these toys except we both know that before the holiday season is over we'll read or watch reports of adult shoppers coming to physical violence over a store's last shipment of these toys and someone, somewhere will set up a cottage industry (if it hasn't happened already) on selling all the accessories every child will need for her/his zhu-zhu.
And if the past is the prelude to the future, in a couple of years, as part of local collections to help the hungry and indigent, our children will be donating their now unwanted zhu-zhus to those in need of a roof or a warm coat. I guess if you're a real live hamster, all of this will constitute a happy ending, at least until the next trend surfaces.
-bill kenny
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