The Price of Christmas

I have some qualms to pick with the world on the prices of some very basic toys.   My two year old loves trains and for his last birthday I bought USED on Amazon the Thomas and Percy trains with a mailcar which totalled about $17 and a Orbrium figure eight train track with a 2 trains included, which cost about $22.  New wooden Thomas trains cost about $15 each for the smaller trains and $20-$25 for the longer trains.  If we were to buy him a whole set of trains this could get very pricey, easily $200 or more.  Instead our son pretends the generic trains from Orbrium are other engines like Spencer, Diesel and Gordon.  The basic circle track on Toyrus.com goes for $29.99 alone, and that does not include the bridge and tunnel I got with my cheaper knock off version.  I also got him the large box of Duplos (with the 150 pieces), which cost $59.99 on sale.  The normal price is $74.99!!
Really?!  75 bucks for a box of blocks and of those 150 pieces most of them are the small square blocks which we all know doesn't support a good building structure.  And this didn't even come with a bucket to store them or the building plate.  Let's not kid ourselves parents, I want good toys for my kids so I can enjoy playing with them too!  (playing with my kids of course)

I may be totally crazy but I do think that the prices of very basic good solid toys nowadays is way too high.  In my Christmas research these are some of the expensive toys that I plan to not buy my son.  This is not because I don't love him, its because I will probably find a perfectly good used one on Craigslist or in the trash tomorrow.

Radio Flyer My First Sport Scooter 

• $39.99
• (really?  It's a baby scooter and we will only use this a few times when the weather is good before he outgrows it!)
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7 Train (Flushing Local) Wooden Train

Price: $12.95

(I was at Grand Central and I get that this is a specialty item for NY tourists or NY enthusiasts, but I think that a train should not be more than $5.  I would buy him this if I could get 3 for $12.95. Instead I will buy a generic train at Target for $2.99 and stick a purple 7 on it)

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