Tell us your must-have Christmas toy horror stories - for a chance to win Toy Story toys and the new Toy Story 3 Blu-ray Triple Play (contains Blu-Ray, DVD & Digital Copy)

[rebeccamumsnet]

Hello. Toy Story 3 is out on Blu-ray & DVD on November 22nd and the people behind the hit movie would like to know if you've ever had trouble getting hold of the must-have Christmas toy of the moment.

Did you spend all day tramping from high-street store to high-street store, only to find it sold out everywhere? Or did you have to bare your elbows and fight your way to the top of a very long queue? Or maybe you trawled the net and ended up buying it at ten times the price? Or perhaps (sympathy emoticon), you pulled out all the stops to get it and then found your mother/auntie/long-lost cousin had already bought it (cheaper, natch) to give to your DC herself? So tell!

Everyone who posts their "must-have toy horror story" on this thread will be entered into a prize draw to win a fab Toy Story 3 goodie bag, including a signed Woody and a signed Buzz and a Blu-ray Triple Play (contains Toy Story 3 on Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital Copy)

Thanks and good luck, MNHQ

Please note: ideas suggested on this thread may well be published elsewhere on Mumsnet

Love the story above!

A few years ago ds1 told us the night before xmas eve, for the first time, that he wanted a Ben 10 watch. He seemed so excited to think Father Christmas would bring it him, because FC would instantly know he wanted it being magic and all. Cue DH being despatched to Tesco early Christmas Eve where luckily he got one Ds did play with it loads though.

Last year spending ages on phone and internet to loads of different toy shops to try and get those go go hamsters. Managed to get some on toysrus and they got lost in the post! Eventually got some elsewhere,and yep they never play with them! I had morning sickness at the time so that was fun, constantly redialling and refreshing the page and pausing to run off and puke!

I can't top the story of the infected Po and the pyre. But I am still bloody pissed off at having to pay import taxes for a starwars transformer that I paid a fortune for off of US ebay and arrived after xmas.

I worked in Argos one xmas before the reservations system came in. It was horific!

Thanks FunkyMama!

I guess it is a 'horror' story with a happy ending, though!

BigTeuch that made me cry!

And I just read it out to DH and cried again!

When toy story first came out, the number 1 Christmas present was buzz light year but of course everywhere had sold out.

My BIL lined up for hours at toys r us as they were getting new stock in but only a limited number.
So there was BIL in the queue for hours desperate to get the toy that his son desperately wanted.
The shop opened, he went running in with all the other crazy parents and couldn't believe his luck to actually get the buzz light year.

He was so sure his son would be so happy when he unwrapped the special present on christmas morning to find the best surprise present ever.

What he didn't know was, there was a film crew there filming the mad shopping scene. The scene was being shown on a breakfast show, the same breakfast show that my sister and nephew were watching!
My nephew saw his dad get the toy so that kind of ruined that surprise!

I have no stories because a) My children are almost 4 and 2 so not yet into the "must have" thing and b) even should they beg for something sold out I am way too lazy to bother getting hold of it. I did once stand in a long line to get a tamagotchi when they first came out as a child. My dcs adore Toy Story though, it is ds's most loved film in the world and dd loves it almost as much as she loves Shrek. I lie, she doesn't love Shrek, she loves Dragon. Anyway does that get me into the draw?

Last year i stalkedthe local toy shop for 2 months to get the darn go go hamster fun house - we got it and its a pile of crap, broke about 2 weeks later. Anyone considering go go hamster tat dont do it!! The go go hamster themselves are quite canny but they are more than happy to live in a shoe box! My ds is buzz lightyear mad this year but i refuse to pay over the odds, if i cnt get one i cant get one its tough.

A couple of years ago on Christmas Eve morning, all the shopping was done. My Mum popped in to see my 3 DD's. She asked my eldest (then 7), 'what would you like Father Christmas to bring you?' She replied (out of earshot of me, my Mum told me after), 'Well, Grandma, I think I've been really good this year, and what I'd really like more than anything else in the world is a password journal.'

I hadn't got her one, but the ironic thing is that I'd tried to order one from Amazon thinking it was the sort of thing she'd like, but it wasn't going to be despatched until after Christmas.

Que, me racing around all of the big toy shops while my Mum sat with the girls, trying to source a password journal. All out of stock, I was about to give up, but then I tried our local independant toy shop who were about to close, they had one! They even gave me 10% discount.

She loved it so much that the following year we had to get DD2 one.

This year DD3 (2.5yrs) is Toy Story mad, we're hoping to get her Buzz Lightyear with our Tesco clubcard points.

Mines not so much a story about a rare toy, but rather specific guidelines DS (3.6) has given me.

What he wants from Santa is a blue lorry the same size as his megabloks yellow CAT excavator (pretty big)... sounds simple enough?

All I can say is thank goodness he asked very early. I finally managed to get one after anally enquiring as to the size of every blue lorry I could possibly find online.

It would depress me to calculate how long I have spent looking for it and for a couple of weeks I was even dreaming about bloody blue lorries.

I can't wait for Christmas morning though

Xmas last year - trying to track down a plain blue tub of 4 plus lego. what could be simpler? except for the fact that there was a run on lego. shop after shop I tried for weeks. with only pink tubs available. had to give up till the new year.

DM called me in tears on 21st December. She had promised to get DN a lego set that was very popular and needless to say all stores were out of stock. She'd tried and tried and was really worried he'd be upset on Christmas day.

I offered to try and find one online but she said 'I've tried everywhere. I took this as some sort of challenge and spent six hours translating websites to find the blinking thing. Found four in the end, but only one was in central Europe (Germany) and could get here in time with super dooper expensive next day service (which actually takes two days). Never mind I thought, it appears cheaper than the UK version I'm sure it'll be fine.

Lego arrived. DM overjoyed. Called credit card company and discovered that the total postage was 90% of cost of Lego because it was expedited.

Then DN got a sickness bug and didn't see my DM till January. And new stocks had arrived in the sales by then

Lessons learned: give the little bugger an IOU and don't sweat it if you can't get it in time.

My DS wants a silver robot (traditional looking, like the one on Max and Ruby) suitable for a 4yo who has a habit of breaking things.... I don't think it exists myself! He's been asking for it all year.

I don't a story myself, so instead, I vote for BigTeuchLittleTeuch's twin pram story- you made me cry!
:)

Teuch that made me sob a bit. How lovely.

Hahaha at the burning toy on Christmas day!

I have plenty of stories. With 7 children and 12 years of Christmas shopping for them all it is inevitable. Every year in fact.

The worst was dd1. She wanted a baby Annabell. I searched and finally found one only for her to let slip just 2 days before Christmas that she wanted an Asian baby Annabell!

Cue desperate dash to a thousand stores. It was a joke. I found one. In Argos on Christmas eve. Late delivery.

bought rose petal cottage in argos sale long before xmas, stored away well and decided to put it up on xmas eve morn when dd was out. pole snapped and walked down to argos to exchange. no stock, closest one was 20 miles + away. binlaw drove to get it.

dd came home so errected after she was in bed, after a few wines putting it up alone, was hard bloody work. the tent was so bloody tight on the poles it took me half the bloody night to get it up. hangover kicked in before it was done.

I've got a nightmare this year, my little one loves In the Night Garden and his favourite characters are the tomboleboos(sorry about the spelling) but there doesn't seem to be anything its all upsy daisy, iggle piggle and makka pakka. Have scoured hundreds of sites trying to find something but only thing available are some little soft toys.

Xmas she was 3 DD told us she wanted a Dolls House. Not a problem, but looking, they were all really expensive.

Couple of weeks later we saw one in a ToysRus flyer, reduced to £50. Went down and they were sold out, kept going back, but stock went really quickly and I could only go when not at work.

Had moaned about it at work, and luckily one of my colleagues was on a day off and in ToysRus when new stock came in, he bought it and presented it to me the next day!

Now that would be boring right?

Xmas eve, Dolls house put together, wrapped and waiting in the cupboard. Just about to put DD to bed and she starts talking about her dolls house "and it will have a family" (check) " and a girl like me " (check) "and a brown girl" (what??) "and a dinosaur" (whaaat??)

Mad rush to all the supermarkets (this was 8 pm), no dinos, no black families. Despairing I come back home and have a brainwave. Dino is a plastic giraffe painted green, and the baby of the dollshouse family I paint brown!

3 yrs on they are still there, and still played with, but even DD doesn't know what a dino lives in her dollshouse "he just does"

Teuch I have tears!

In the days of the great Christmas Buzz Lightyear craze I worked in the buying department of The Disney Store. At the time I was single and child less. It was amazing how many old friends, neighbours, friends of friends, people who served me once in the kebab shop etc etc suddenly became my new best mate as I had insider info of when they would be in the shops. Some cheeky b*ers asked me to use my staff discount too!!

Turn this around and last year ds was desperate for a Lego city fire station and I has friends far and wide looking for it so I can now see how those people felt in about 1996!

We have been trying to get DD a 'collecters' Jessie doll for this Christmas,

They were out of stock everywhere and we resorted to ebay.

We found what we 'thought' was a badly listed Jessie out of the box and we won her,

she arrived manky without her hat and talking like an alien - her talking mechanism thing must have been broke. And to top it off she wasn't even the Jessie we wanted, she was a room guard, not a dolly.

We were gutted at having spent £20 on her!! :(

We eventually managed to find a proper jessie in a shop and snapped her up! DD will be super pleased. Shes only 1 but says 'yee ha cwgee' (yeehaw cowgirl!')

DH (a very big kid), was desperate for a wii when they first came out. Luckily he told me early, so I went onto Amazon and it said 1 in stock so I brought it. This was end Sept/beg Oct.
Great job done. Then they became really scarce and I thought I can have some fun here. So I started apologising to DH saying I had tried everywhere but couldn't find one, but not to worry I was still looking and I was sure that I would get one in time. DH started to search for himself, but as they were impossible to get I thought I was still safe. He was searching all European sites but still couldn't find one.
Then the sod did, in Germany so I had to come clean, ruined what would have been a fantastic surprise.
These days DH hardly plays with it and it is DS who loves it!

Last year I failed to get Ds1 Indiana Jones lego I thought he'd forget about it he's 5 and it says age 8.
Ds1 still goes on about how Santa forgot his lego :( even though he'd been good and keeps saying maybe he will remember this year.
Try and find the playset and no where have got it ended up getting it from Germany but at least ds1 will be happy.

Last year i decided to get Dd a Zhu Zhu hamster as a surprise. i tried for weeks with no success and had given up then decided to have one last try only to find one in John Lewis, which I snapped up. Dd came home that night, saw an advert for it on the TV and said 'that looks boring, doesn't it mum?'. The hamster then arrived and I sold it on Ebay