Presents In Mind / Does This Make Me a Grinch?
Toys suck.
Even all the lead paint aside I am praying to God that we do NOT get toys this Christmas. I have been working overtime begging all the relatives and some of our friends to give us books instead. I mean if we get books I know just what the kids will do with them; they'll sit and browse them. I will be able to drink a cup of coffee and enjoy a measure of Christmas myself.
Face it, I'm selfish.
If we get toys I will be instantly transported to that twist-tie RSI hell steeped in the zap-strap-fuelled-crankiness and whoa look out. Mama hates me some toy products more often than not. If we get the damn toys I will spend the morning breaking up fights while I try to actually get this crap out of all the overpackaging. I will be rifling for batteries and sorting out all the age inappropriate crap.
To meet my goal I have two dear souls to thank really. Those being my librarian-parent-blogger compatriots Mad Hatter and Kittenpie. Thanks to their terrific online lists I have made use of the evil empire's fancy interface functionality to post our public booklist and be generally really pushy about wanting books not toys. I am secretly hoping that they will, in fact, use their local bookstore or our really fine flagship Vancouver store but no matter how they come. Wish me luck, I cannot face a load of toys like last year and part of me know that toys for our 3 year old are going to be 10 times worse.
Never mind that this might save me from those quarterly book buying sprees I have that have become a bit ridiculous. I mean as a librarian I don't really need to buy books at all but, still....
posted by mo-wo at 9:08 p.m.
4 Comments:
I always give books to everyone. I seldom get them in return. I think it's the librarian's curse. No one wants to risk buying a book for a librarian. Sheesh.
We cut waaaay down on the toys this year...mainly because of the evil packaging.
I have also bought nice things like toy animals and art books and activity books..things that will keep em quiet and busy.
After spending a FORTUNE at Kidzbooks a while back...we held back on the books..but yeah...LOVE books.
Oh yeah. I totally hear you.
I am very pushy about directing people to my indigo lists, too, and even put some toys and CDs on it so if people think books are boring gifts (!), they can at least give us toys I would not be grossed out by. I do give some toys, but they are ones that require imagination, not batteries, and ones I know she will *want* to play with and won't irritate me.
oh yes.....we've been in bondage Barbie hell for 3 Christmases. We now keep a pair of wire cutters close on Christmas and birthdays!
I must admit though, we've run out of walls to put new book shelves on, so we have to limit the books! lol I need to dust off the library cards instead of buying.
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