This Dad blogger usually hunkers down for the holiday season onslaught of toy promotion enthusiasm, but this year the retailers shocked him with early aggressiveness. He responds in kind.
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It arrived in my inbox like a big spammy lump of coal — “It’s here our 2014 hot toy list!” I thought “oh this must just be a nice list of toys. This CAN’T possibly be a holiday toy list already arriving on September 20th, a full THREE months before Christmas.
Then I saw the next line which said “the hottest toys plus the world’s greatest toy store equals the best Christmas ever!” I thought it must be a joke — long before Halloween — long before Thanksgiving — just a couple of weeks after the start of school — and they are pressing the holiday panic button for me??
I call it Premature Toyification.
We just finished paying for school supplies now I need to worry about which toys my kids need to make the holidays a success?!!??
Oh dear god. Sure I know the holidays have been creeping into society earlier and earlier and earlier. We get the Valentines stuff on December 26th and the 4th of July stuff on Memorial Day — as a society we are calendar wacked.
Premature Toyification
Then they tell me their toy experts travel the world for the best toy ideas, spending endless hours testing the toys, making sure they’re as fun as they can be.
They’re like a modern day Christopher Columbus — if Columbus couldn’t find his way to the right island, and also, had no idea about calendars and which month is which. Because it’s three months BEFORE Christmas.
Premature Toyification
Now my head is stuffed with ideas from Frozen and Transformers and whatever the hell a Doc McStuffins is. My kids have fads that go in and out of style within a couple of days. How the hell can I pick their top holiday toys NOW for the best Christmas ever three months from now which is like a lifetime in kid years? Still now I’m sitting there flipping through the toys now looking at Skylander and mini Leap Pads and Lego Fusion Town Masters.
Premature Toyification
By the way. I’m Jewish. So there’s THAT. My kids are half Jewish too and half Catholic… I’m sure the Hanukkah toy rush is in there too.
Yes I know Costco already has trees out and Hallmark already has ornaments out. The holidays are creeping in earlier and earlier. Costco also sells 200 gallon drums of ketchup and 100 roll boxes of five ply toilet paper. I don’t buy those either. I guess people WANT to see all this stuff early… as much as we say we don’t — and that’s why they do it. But that doesn’t mean I need to like it.
It’s premature Toyification and I feel guilty and embarrassed after.
Originally appeared on Dadmissions.
Photo: moosegirl1/Flickr