Hatchimals! You can’t look on Facebook or turn on the news or talk with a friend without the topic of Hatchimals coming up. They are THE toy craze for the 2016 holiday season. Who wouldn’t love a cute little animal that hatches out of an egg? Everyone wants a Hatchimal and you should too.
Recently I started thinking about the yearly toy craze. Talking Elmo, Cabbage Patch Dolls and now Hatchimals. The product may have changed but the pitch hasn’t. You need one. Your kid needs one. And if you don’t have one, you are missing out.
Who really decides what’s the next big thing….
I started to think about this whole toy mania that always comes up at Christmas time. Who decides what the next BIG thing is? There most be someone out there that markets the heck out of a toy to get it to the top. How did these Hatchimals become a craze? I just don’t get it. When you think about, some corporation decides what our kids must have rather than us as parents. They make a need where there wasn’t one.
The Crazy Thing is….
The crazy thing is that I started to want a Hatchimal! My kids haven’t even requested one. I think it’s the thrill of the hunt. The desire to get your hands on something that no one else can find. Even this semi-minimalist wanted to buy the next big thing. I even started following Facebook posts on when Target and Walmart would get their next shipments in. I had to step back and wonder why I was doing this?
I told myself: You don’t need a Hatchimal. Your kids don’t even want a Hatchimal. Why are you wasting your time?
A lesson learned from the Hatchimal phenomenon….
What I learned from my overwhelming desire for these darn Hatchimals is that we are all human. It is natural to want those hard-to-find toys. I think it is even in our DNA. And you know what else? It’s ok to go on the hunt for that Hatchimal but only if you are doing it for the right reasons. If you child is just dying for it; why not? But we must always keep our motives in check. Are we spending precious time during the season searching for something that we feel we need simply because everyone else wants it? Are we keeping tabs of store shipment days because we want to score what no one else can get? Are we confusing the thrill of the hunt with the true spirit of holiday gift-giving?
So after an internal battle with my desire for a Hatchimal, I have decided to let that idea go. I would be buying it for all the wrong reasons.