What not to waste your money on for the DC this Christmas-

[Sparklingbrook]

I will start, get the DCs wish lists ready to cross them off-

Elefun. Should be renamed Ele IMO.

Golden Coin Maker. Just don't.

Any more suggestions?

The hot wheels that sticks to the wall. Utter crap.
The cheap Lego substitutes -false economy.
Jigsaw books. Impossible to close book with jigsaw intact inside.
tHose remote controlled helicopters. Cost £££. First time out they hit the ceiling and rotors fly off.

I'm glad a few people have said about the stuck to wall hot wheels playsets. I was wondering about them as I'm sure DS would like it, DD also liked the look of the Polly pocket ones. I will definitely give them a miss! You'd have to spend loads to get all the sets to put together anyway!

Marble run from ELC, the pieces didn't even fit together so I binned it! Also, the spyrograph from ELC, it didn't work, I had to bring it back, so basically anything plastic from ELC doesn't fit together! I'd love to find a real spyrograph though, I loved that when I was younger!

I've avoided the fireman Sam sets, because DNephew got one for Christmas a few years ago and it was so crap.

YY to the stupid fecking flutter fairies - we accumulated 6 of the things one xmas. Opened 1, great disappointment from all concerned that they didn't actually 'fly' at all, and used the other 5 as party presents for DDs friends.

Also, has anyone started a good present thread?

And while i'm here, we hated the aqua beads too, but reading this has made me think I might get some hama beads for stockings if they aren't complicated.

See we have fireman Sam toys and whilst they are utter crap in my eyes my ds loves them. Admittedly we got them half price and in my opinion they were still overpriced for what they are. However in terms of hours of play they have paid for themselves so I guess I was wrong.
They are very lighterweight and no doubt the imaginext fire station we have is a million times better made but ds adores fireman Sam.

Mega bloks have been rubbish for us, they fall apart too easily, they don't really click together. Also didn't like the elc flexi track much and most of the car sets we've had (matchbox and hotwheels) have been abysmal. I don't understand how hotwheels are still in business, all the reviews for them on amazon are awful too. The cars themselves are quite nice but the sets that have to fit together are hopeless.

Jellybaff - do yourselves a fucking favour and dont unless you are happy to take your plumbing apart because there isn't enough crappy disolver and it's hell for long hair.

Trash Pack Scum Drum and Garbage Truck, massively overpriced and really shit quality.

Playmobil castle. I always go on about this but it falls apart if you so much as look at it.

Jellibaff - it's like putting a packet of cheap wallpaper paste and some food colouring in the bathwater.

We like Elefun!!!!!
Agree with Moon sand.
Bendaroos are crap - they olost their stickiness v quickly.
Those water beads - Aqua Beads? - crap.
We like Hotwheels too....

Pig goes pop, doggy do, perfume maker, bath bomb maker, any variant on monopoly other than actual monopoly, dino bite (which never seemed to bite for the duration of the game?), ker-plunk, moshi monster guess who, volcanic science explosion, zhu zhu pets.

All of these and many many more have made a swift exit from the shelves of babybedmoster. Waste. Of. Time.

helpful thread on what to avoid, thanks. Are there any threads on what's good to buy? I'm still looking for a 7 year old ds, nearly 5 dd and 10 month old ds.

I'll add guess who to list of doom for the bin toys. What a piece of crap, it didn't even fit together properly.

I ordered this for dd.

Only after it arrived did I decide to look it up on youtube to find out that it sounds like a cat dying of a very painful disease.

OMG I forgot about that hidieous stuff- jellibaff- my kids were actually scared of it!! its disgusting stuff and makes a right mess!

Years ago I had (unknown to me) a furby in the back of the car with all the other rubbish. I hit a pot hole and the furby 'woke up'. Nearly wet myself, I thought I'd run over a cat!

Plastic Meccano. Pile of shite.

My First Operation - total crap - no fun at all and impossible to boot - do not be tempted if you see it on offer.

I have a love/have relationship with Playmobil - love the concept, but the reality is the bits fall off too easily and get lost so at the moment we have a bit of the police station, the police car... to name a few. Bought the pyramid for DS2 so will be hunting down the bits for that soon too - am tempted to arildite it!

mamas i'm going to start one right now. Think it might be a short thread

Er, actually, it's been started already!

anything that plays music and has a microphone, will be giving my niece one in a couple of years time to remind my sister how much the whole family suffered during long car journeys with her singing "a whole new world" with a Brazilian accent. That freaking song still sends shivers down my spine!

Agee about buckaroo.

But not about elefun. We love our elefun when friends come to play.

crap toys (over the past couple of years) have been:

moon sand/ moon dough
Dave the monkey (was fun for a few minutes)
elle fun
that bubble popping game (not sure what its called but its crap)
moshi monster tree house and the moshling zoo (very thin plastic, was broken within a week).
Ben and hollys castle (good toy but took 2 hours to put together, even had to put all the stickers on).
Lego games (not as good as proper lego, very small and hard to play).
Zubber (horrid greasy stuff, takes ages to set).

Any form of character lego - except the cheap figure boxes

Too expensive
Take ages to make
Fall apart constantly unless superglued - yes as if I'm going to have time!!!!$L£
Never get played with because they fall apart
Cause constant ructions because they fall apart
Defeats the object of darling children using their brains making stuff
The bits are almost all useless 'special' bits
They only want the figures anyway