Christmas presents you thought would be a huge hit but were actually a major flop

[Gillian76]

I'll start.

ELC wooden dolls' house for DD1. Played with about 5 times

dd also hated her leappad, it ate the batteries

Don't know any kids who play with their leap pads

Mine loved the leap pad

I would second scalextric. I managed to buy 2 lots. Once many years ago for DS2...never played with. Then more recently younger boys a smaller scale version they managed to wreck!

Another waste of money was the Star Wars lego sets. DS3 loves films and toys but the lego version was hard to build and would not stay together.I think we've got all the sets. Got the last few very cheaply. They were always on special offer. Don't think range lasted long. Pity really all other lego as been very popular with all 6 DC.

Microscope. I loved mine as a kid - my kids don't

Wobble deck - hasn't been played with ONCE! In over a year. Can't bring myself to throw it out, its as-new (obviously!) and it was expensive. Anyone want it?

Our dolls house is played with incessantly.

Lego - we have MASSES of it, but I can't say it is ever played with, sadly

Walkie talkies. We have barbie ones, bob the builder ones, motorola ones - never used. Bah.

Leappad, hardly used.

The most used things are anything arty/crafty, anything musical (small keyboard, recorder etc), children's chunky tape recorder and cd player, board games, sticklebricks, Nintendo DS, light sabres/swords etc, hobby horses and dolls prams and trollies with bricks, big tractors and trucks, brio train track (has to be best value toy ever), Tomy aquadraw.

I was wondering about a Leappad for dd (3.6). I managed to find a "my first Leappad" with 2 books in a charity shop for £1.50. So it's not much wasted if she doesn't play with it and if she does she can have the next one up next year.

DD has hardly played with her Fisher Price kitchen/shop, yet they get raved about on here as THE most played with toy.

I was so disappointed that I took her to Toys R Us to choose something for her birthday as I couldn't bear to get it wrong again. She chose a Dora Explorer campervan and has played with it every day over the last 6 months.

ds played with his leap pad for a total of five minutes.

Actually the most played with toy from last Christmas was a little plastic hairdryer/beauty set that I got from Poundland!

Psml at reference to that horsehead thing.
I swear,most of this crap has been designed by people on drugs.

I am in all honestly to aware of my own dignity to ask for the 'Lil Louis Rock a Tot Shake and Vac MP3 VTech' that will invariably be the big thing this year.

Interestingly our aquadraw is one of the most used of all our toys.

I got dd a coin operated chocolate machine from Hawkins Bazaar this year that I thought she would love.Shame the fecker doesn't work.
The Barbie knickers from my mother went down much better.

at the adult fantasy novel.

Fave toy has always been teh ELC keyboard with micro phone and stool we are on our second . MY two DS's love it and so do thrie friends

oh that's a point - walkie talkies have never been played with for longer than about 10 seconds.

mini moto that has been used twice

electric scooter that was used once, left in the rain so binned it

Am with NDP - that decapitated Barbie's Horese's head.

Bought 2 (2 FGS, 1 for each DD).

They were shite, held their attention for ooohh, nanoseconds.

Mini Motos kill OAPs don't they????

oh bloody hell ds is getting playmobil airport for his birthday and scalextric for christmas.

wooden toys never went down that well here either. wooden train set was a hit, but wooden noa's ark/zoo shape sorting truck thing were never played with. He has good imagination though and loves his cars.

another thing I would never buy again are tonka toys. They look great and ds does love them, but they're crap and don't last five minutes. he had a digger thing for christmas last year that stopped working within about an hour, exchanged it for a similar, but not as good, digger which stopped working within about three months, and the day I went to take it back the most toys on the customer service desk at toyRUs were tonka. My sister's ds has also had about three that have stopped working within a matter of weeks.

I thought Tonka were "real tough toys for real tough boys" (am I showing my age ?).

do they moondog
I have never heard of that
alot of us are responsible parents who gain permission (in writing) from private car parks

think OAP's get killed more by drunk drivers tbh than mini motos

well apparently they used to be, but they used to be made from metal/dycast but now they're just made from cheap plastic, and generally the motorised ones just have too many electric bits in that can fail.

Playmobile has lots of 'bits' which get lost or choked on, then thrown out by Easter, not great.

my mum tends to buy him toys that look nice "they've got this wooden xxxx in this catalogue, it looks so lovely" toys aren't meant to look lovely they're meant to be played with fgs

we bought DD the Thomas the Tank Engine Sodor Post Office. It was kind of a late birthday - lets just treat her thing. She is 3 and that's the age it's recommended from.

DH and I had to set the whole thing up - as she would'nt have been able to. But once the trains were going all she could do was watch.

Every vehicle (Thomas, Percy and Harold) slipped or got stuck at some point. And the little engine was too fast for her to be able to put it back on track when this happened. She could'nt actually play with it, but rather just watch it - no fun there.

We ended up taking it back, complaining it was to advanced for a 3 year old, and badly designed as it did'nt managed to complete more than 2 circuits before a part got stuck or de-railed.

ToysRUs were very understanding and we replaced the set for a wooden Brio-type railway set which she has hours of fun with and can put together and rearrange by herself until her hearts content.

Brio is great and the ELC happy people track stuff.

Leappad - occasionally gets played with
Playmobile - again - occasionally
Workbench - played with twice till I confiscated the hammer which was the only tool being "used", then ignored
Kitchen - bought too late - would have been great when he was 2
Mighty Movers - battery operated construction vehicles - crap

Workbench - now in garden! Kitchen played with now and again. Garage played with now and again. Boys just love to fight with each other, maybe get boxing gloves?

Budabeast -had to laugh at the confiscated hammer! DS had a workbench for his 2nd birthday and the hammer was confiscated after 2mins after he decided to hit his sister with it -the rest of the tools and bench get played with almost daily though.