Christmas Presents are a Waste

I traveled to 2 different Wal-Mart stores last week to purchase the motherload Christmas present for my 2 year old son. We have bought him several presents for Christmas and there is nothing I enjoy more. He deserves it. He really is a good kid. But this week, we still had to purchase his big ticket item. It costs around $330. It is a John Deere Gator made by Peg Perego. It has a horn. It has reverse. It has seat belts. It goes 4.5 mph. It has a working dump bed. I will admit, it is awesome. So we purchased this item, brought it home, and I spent 2 or so hours putting it together this last Saturday. I love it. His mom loves it. We think he will love it.

Later this same afternoon, sensing my son's boredom, we decided to play star wars while mom was finishing wrapping some presents. We used the cardboard tubes from emptied wrapping paper rolls as swords/lightsabers. I must say that this was most fun I have ever seen my kid have. He belly laughed for an hour straight. Cardboard tubes? Come on.......I just spent over $300 on John Deere Gator and the kid is enjoying cardboard tubes.......So, we took this farther.........After my son demolished the cardboard swords on my head and back and our swords were no more, we ventured to get the cardboard box that the before mentioned motherload toy came in. We made a fort. We cut out windows, cut out a moon roof, wrote with crayons "no girls allowed." It was awesome. We played and played in this fort as my son kept informing me "no somebody see us." There were many more belly laughs. This is when I realized, I just spent around $1000 on a kid for Christmas presents, when he would have had just as much fun for around $10. Ha-Ha......the jokes on Dad. Bah Hum Bug!