2009 Holiday Hits and Misses

[athompson]

5 year DD:
Hits
Lego pink brick box
Pink Plasma car #1
Littlest Pet Shop set of animals
Tinkerbell movie
Books

3 year old DD:
Hits
Duplo building set
Pink Plasma car #2
Eloise movie
Books

1 year old DD:
Hits
Fisher Price Little People building set
Little People Tractor and SUV
Books

Hit for all
Plan Toys Pounding toy

TBD for all
Sweet Lily Castle (the cat likes it).
Pillow Pets (which my oldest BEGGED for).
Melissa Doug cookie set (and we got two).

[cpapay]

4 Year Old Girl

Hits:
Learning Resources Cash Register (she shouted...It is what I always wanted!)
Pet Vet Set
Art Supplies


TBD:
Bitty Baby Kitchen---I think I like it better than she does =)
Cutting Food and various M&D wood food things--we already have alot.

My DD is never very excited about clothing or books---but I wouldn't call them a miss.

[JTsMom]

4.5 year old DS

Hits:
-All things Toy Story! He got Buzz (with the buttons that push!), and Woody (with a string that pulls!), and the RC car from the Andy's Room Collection. He played with them all day yesterday, and fell asleep clutching Woody.
-Mr. Potato Head and Disney P.H. parts
-Talking Thomas Discovery Set, Lights and Sounds Signal, Water Tower Set, and several trains and DVDs.
-A Buzz Kooky pen
-Candy! Especially the candy canes Santa left on the tree.
-M&D pizza set
-Surprising Hit- Christmas PJ's.
-Hyper Jump
-Toy Story Yahtzee
-Tractor Sweatshirt
-Stomp Rockets

Yet to be really played with, but I wouldn't call them misses yet- just takes him a while to get to everything:

Zingo
Toy Story 2 DVD (surprising)
Cars (from Cars movie)
Disney mug with his name on it
Playdoh
Paints
Hungry Hungry Hippos
Clock radio with CD player- although he did really like the TS CD Santa brought for it.

Misses:
Santa dollar
Nerf football

[Snow mom]

1 yo DD

Hits:
-Radio Flyer Walker Wagon (I couldn't resist and gave this to her a few days early. She loves pushing it around as well as putting things in and out of it.)
-Plan Toys Xylophone
-Corolle Tiddo? It's done fairly well so far by her standards of not really caring much about stuffed animals and dolls. Have to see if the interest holds up.

Misses:
Not sure yet. Lots of toys that haven't gotten much play but at least got a bit of interest yesterday among all the chaos.

[ourbabygirl]

~14 month DD~

Hits:

*Kidkraft Prairie play kitchen (we got her this a few weeks ago, but she's loved playing with it)

*PBK dishes for play kitchen

*riding rocker pony- you push one ear and it sings a song and push the other ear & it neighs and says some stuff. The weird thing is that the one ear has a guy singing a song..."I'm a pony...." and the other ear has a woman saying stuff ("I like it when you brush me!", etc.) DH thinks the poor thing must have identity issues.

*board books (esp. a Baby Einstein one w/a mirror in it, and one about puppies, which DD LOVES)

Not sure yet:

other books
some clothes

[MontrealMum]

DS is 2yrs 4 mos.:

HITS:
Ikea Igloo tent - biggest hit by far
Duplo fire truck
new books
Caillou DVD
Winnie the Pooh DVD
stuffed animals (Paddington, Olympic bear, yet another penguin)
handmade wooden logging truck
more Siko metal trucks and cars
Playmobil horse set

Happy about:
more Thomas stuff and Imaginarium/Ikea track
Waldorf doll
dollhouse (though mommy and grandma are getting more out if it than DS is )

meh - maybe needs time to grow into:
Superhero cape

We decided to wait on the M&D easel since he was just so overwhelmed and keyed up about everything else. We'll probably give it to him in a month or so when things have died down a bit.

[stefani]

6-year-old boy:

HITS:
Snap Circuits Flying saucer
Specialized Hotrock 16" bicycle
a remote controlled race pods (almost like the ones in the Wall-E movie)

MISS:
books :-) I think he would enjoy it, it is just that not as exciting as toys.

The others he has not had a chance to play with.

[Charlie]

19 Month Old DS -

Major Hit - Plan Toys kitchen center with Ikea pots/pans and Ikea cooking utensils. He also got the Plan Toys cutting fruit / veggies and likes them as well but they aren't really essential to his kitchen play.

Hit - FP Little People Recycle Truck

We also got him Ikea blocks in a cart. He is not interested in the blocks but likes wheeling the cart around. So sort of a hit or a miss, depending upon how you look at it.

Miss - Ikea commuter train (at least that's what I call it). He didn't even look at it. We also got him the Ikea train set but decided to hold off on giving it to him and seeing his lack of reaction to the one train I think that was a good idea.

Too Soon to Tell -

Clipo Activity Table (gift) - I thought this would be a bust (I had read poor reviews) but he keeps taking it out. Doesn't seem to love it or hate it.

Tag Junior (gift) - Haven't shown it to him yet and he may still be too young for it but I was playing with it tonight and am impressed by how much it does.

[kijip]

Hits for T, age 6:

Gyro Wheel ($3 stocking stuffer). This has gotten more playtime than anything else except the Wii Fit Plus.

Wii Fit Plus

He likes the books we got and is super excited about a make your own bouncy ball kit my brother got him. He also loves this little metal 15 puzzle.

Hits for F, age 1:

He seemed down with the HABA first blocks. Spent considerable time moving the blocks in and out of the HABA Walker wagon. Love buying used.

Besides that, the only thing he paid attention to was a little ball puzzle from T's stocking. He uses it as a rattle.

Misses:

T does not want to even use his new bedding. We are going to return it, which is tricky because Santa brought it. Oh well.

T was not all that appreciative of his overall level of gifts which, given that I grew up very poor financially, is maddening to me. I never said a single word to my parents expressing discontent with a Christmas and that is not an exaggeration. Is this a function of being 6 and middle class, relatively well off? It is a function of being spoiled? He is not known to act spoiled generally, does not have the gimmes in the store etc. He did not throw a tantrum, he just looked forlorn and ready to cry. I don't really feel a lot of empathy for him here, as cold as that sounds. It's not like he got nothing fun for Christmas- he got a Wii Fit, Snap Circuits, 3 books, a CD, fun stocking stuff just from us and Santa plus bedding plus a ton of stuff from relatives. We thought we had done a good job only getting him stuff at Xmas and Birthday. But clearly we misfired somewhere a long the line. I am feeling like I need to curtail it more in the future (ie give less at Christmas) so he learns to appreciate things more. I hope this is just a stage. On the upside (and ironically enough), he was excellent with thanking people and expressing interest in everything people gave him when we were at my brother's house, even if it was not something he liked at all. His disappointment was centered specifically on Santa not bringing him all three larger things that were on his list. But Santa has never brought him everything and we have never led him to believe that that was possible or doable. Last year, he seemed to get this and was so excited with what he did get, he didn't think a lot about what he did not get.

F did not pay much attention to anything else he got besides the blocks and the wagon (together). Pretty typical for 1 and underscores my mixed feelings about toys.

[arivecchi]

3 year old boy

HITS

Schleich castle and knights
pirate rig
gorilla house

MISSES

pedal roller
camera

11 month old boy

HITS

Parents zoo play cube
Chicco DJ booth
Little Tykes pickup truck (big hit with DS1 too)