Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Some Assembly Required

On Christmas morning, Jeff and I learned an important lesson: After the kids unwrap, the parents have to unwrap. And by unwrap, I mean, of course, wrestle the toys from their packaging.

Seriously, who decided that toy packaging should withstand hurricane-force winds?

Forget scissors. What you really need is a blowtorch and a chainsaw to break those things out. Is there some concern that the Wonder Pets Mega Blocks will go off on an adventure by themselves? Or the Learning Snail will crawl off on its own? For all the shrink wrap and twist ties, you'd think someone was trying to prevent the toys from escaping.

Jeff and I have vowed that next year we'll buy early so we have a month to dissect the packaging. Maybe we'd better make that two months.

Fisher Price gets some points for their easy-open packaging. Though the term "easy-open" is relative. Basically it's the difference between breaking into Ft. Knox or cracking the safe at your local bank branch. I did appreciate the perforations in the cardboard though. They were a nice marker for where to cut with the hacksaw.

I don't know who was more delighted when we finally released the toys from their plastic prisons -- us or the kids. Judging from the squeals of delight, I'm pretty sure it was us.

But sadly our victory celebration was cut short by three little words: "Some assembly required."

1 comment:

Suz said...

I'm guessing my gifts would have been hits at your house. For niece-ling, we found the retro FPLP schoolhouse. I gave Yell a sure-fire hit lesson in how to make her cousin happy. We removed all packaging, shoved the little people into the schoolhouse, & then wrapped it in one layer of paper. The instant Niece-ling opened the paper, she began playing. Happiness on the parts of all involved.

Don't you wish you had an 11-yr-old to do your wrapping for you? ;)