Christmas...Grrrr

It's the most wonderful time of the year.  Seriously.  I love winter and I love Christmas.  What I don't love is all the stupid toy catalogs they send me.  Toys R US.  Wal-Mart.  Target.  And I hate that I ask Leo to look through them.  I know what he likes...why do I need to have him look at all of the totally awesome things he can't get.  Like this.  The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles totally awesome lair.  It seriously is totally awesome.




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It has an elevator and a zip line and and and. But you know what? It costs $140. Let me let that sink in. $140 for a toy. Not even a toy that he can ride on. So when he saw this and all of the million other toys that are out of our budget I feel terrible.  When I showed him the price and explained that if this is something that he really, really wanted that maybe we could put this on the list but he would not be getting much else.  And you know what he told me?  He told me that gifts from Santa don't cost anything.  I honestly didn't have an answer for him.  Because Santa builds all of their toys.  It shouldn't cost them any money.  So how do I not burst his Santa bubble already but try to explain that Santa maybe does have a budget.  I did tell him that because Santa buys for all the little boys and girls that he has a limit on what he can do for each kid.  But I don't think it really sank in.  But I know that he won't be getting that for Christmas.

And while I'm not trying to be a Scrooge here it really makes me angry at how expensive toys are.  I balked at paying $40 for a Transformers Autobot Rescue Station last year.  I thought that was pricy. But $140?  That's just absurd.  I know that he would play with it for a few years but at some point he would outgrow it and that seems like a lot of money for a toy.  And don't get me started on Legos.  $80 for a building set that builds ONE thing.  Here let me build this one time and put it on my shelf.  Boom! $80 gone.  Spent on 2 hours of building.  It's really hard for kids to understand why they can't get something and at 5 it's a concept they just hear as NO.  Or mommy and daddy can't afford this which equates into we have no money.  Which is not true.  Just not the kind of money to be spending on a single toy.  And I don't want Leo to be greedy so I'm not going to keep pushing the well on the amount of money I can spend on that monstrosity you could easily get 7 toys!  More=better right?!  So I don't want to go that route.  I like to try to get him to remember the real reason for the season but again a 5 year olds brain process is not there quite yet. 

Ok...enough of me rambling.  I just wanted to get that off my chest.  Bah humbug! :)