Why I've Decided to Boycott ToysRUs

I hate shopping. Full-stop, so I go as rarely as possible and yesterday I mistakenly thought that the best way to find presents for my little grand-children might be to go to a large toy supermarket, believing there would be a wide range of goods on offer.

I had five basic parameters; they must be something my grandchildren don't already have, they must be small as space for large, or even medium sized things is limited, they must be useful, engaging and educational, they should be made with minimal plastics and last, but not least must be around twenty dollars due to my very limited supply of funds.

On the first point I often joke that my daughter has enough toys to open her own child-care centre and keep about twenty children simultaneously occupied. This is largely her own fault but my grandchildren have an extended network of other, more well-heeled nanna's who often lavish gifts too.

On the second point I found that smaller toys were most often junky plastic and/or useless gadgets. In other words space clutterers with no long term value designed to fill up future land fill sites.

On the useful, engaging and educational point I found my daughter already had anything I might be attracted to. Minimal plastic was a major challenge as there were hardly any toys not made with plastic.

On the last point I couldn't find anything I might consider buying that was not either too large and/or too expensive.

But - the thing that really 'got me' were the goods available in the 'kitchen department'. If I had had my camera with me I would have photographed what caused my absolute horror so that the pic could accompany this article.

These toys were really creating quite a stir amongst other shoppers. One mother, accompanied by her own mother muttered loudly at the sight that befell us and complained that her mother in law had sent her a voucher that she was having great trouble spending. I remarked that when my grand daughter visits my farm she plays with sticks, rocks and the chooks for endless hours.

There displayed splendidly in the toy kitchen department was a child's kitchen that was around 50% more expensive than comparative products. It was a toy MacDonald's kitchen complete with all the plastic components to make up a variety of Macca burgers and kids' meals. Not only this, but also there was quite a large variety of lesser MacDonald's, "Golden Gate" toys.

Shame. Shame on you ToysRUs!!

I guess when I think about it most toys in there were 'proprietary' goods. There were endless shelves of Sesame characters, Disney characters, Barbie dolls and a myriad other 'propriety toys' whose prices are wildly inflated by the use of such copyrights.

I'm never going back there again I've decided.

What am I going to do about getting presents I pondered. My first thought was to head to a specialist children's bookshop but, as I said before I truly hate shopping and the thought of the difficulties of parking in the crush, heat and sun and driving even farther in the already heavy Christmas traffic drove me home to have an afternoon nap instead.

I decided to shop where I do much of my shopping; Ebay. Though buying books on Ebay isn't the best and I think Ebay should incorporate the system that other high profile online booksellers have which allows you to browse and look inside books. But this entirely another matter.

Hopefully my grandchildren will receive their Christmas presents in time for Christmas.

Which brings me round to another Ebay point; goods with a bid system are not the best idea if you're looking for presents this close to Christmas.

Happy Christmas everyone. And if I go to Christmas midnight mass again this year I will try to remember to not sing the 'wrong words which I did last year. Now many hymns have been made more politically correct. Yet another matter.

Keep posted.