Holiday Planning: Skip the Plastic!

It's the holiday planning time of year again. You know, the time when my 6- and 8-year-olds pore over the Toys 'R Us Big Book like love-starved children, desperate for expensive, impractical playthings sure to end up at the bottom of the toy basket three days after Santa has left. It's also the time of year I go completely and utterly off the deep end, spewing profanities (in my head, sometimes under my breath), along with apologies to my children for being completely and utterly incompetent.

Why? Because of the plastic. And I don't mean the kind with Visa stamped on the front.

Now, I don't have anything against capitalism or toy manufacturers or suppliers of non-lead parts. But I do have a problem with their scheme to drive parents insane through the insidious use of plastic packaging—you know, the 85 sturdy plastic strips needed to secure a 7-inch Bratz doll and her hooker-like accessories into its case. Frankly I don't need to see what the f-ing doll looks like up close in the box. Nor do I care that the doll's skirt is poofed out, buoyed by a ring of plastic underneath, or that her hair appears "just so" sewn into a plastic thingy secured by plastic twisty ties to the plastic case, which is covered in thick clear plastic that proves resistant to every tool in my toolbox except the wire cutters. Maybe I need to get a crowbar. ...

Just stick the thing in a box with a photo on the front. Shove it in there! Don't even comb the doll's hair. I DON'T CARE! If it's breakable, put bubble wrap around it, but please don't secure it with more of that plastic junk.

And speaking of plastic, why is nearly every toy, even an expensive one, made from cheap parts that never hold together when I try to assemble it? I know better toys mean more money, but I assure you I'd pay an extra $5, maybe even $10, if I knew my child's toy of joy wasn't a piece of crap!

Who's with me here?! C'mon, an extra $5 here, $10 there for birthdays and holidays will be far less than the therapy bills we'll be paying after one more season of, "Mom, can you put my toy together?"