There is no doubt retail sales will be down this season in New England. I visited a number of stores last weekend expecting the usual mob scene but hardly any lines at the register. This goes for as diverse places as Best Buy and Toys R Us.

Taking of Toys R Us I noticed a couple of products when browsing that seemed reasonably priced for what you got and they are popular toys in New England this holiday season according to the stores. I picked them up as presents for family young ones.

The first is the Kidizoom Digital Camera from Vtech – I bought the orange version but it comes in pink and blue as well. I wish these had been around when I was young – maybe I’d be a much better photographer than I am today – or maybe not!

Anyway it looks like it’ll take some rough handling and survive a few droppings better than my 6 mega pixel Olympus can. It comes with a built-in flash and cable to hook it up directly to the TV or PC so you – I mean the kids of course – can have a picture slideshow or video screening. It even has its own simple picture editing software you install on a PC. The Vtech Kidizoom camera toy is aimed at 3-6 year olds.

The other toy that caught my eye was the Leapfrog Musical Table – an educational toy aimed at 6 months – 3 years, although I suspect older toddlers may get bored quicker.

Ignoring all the mumbo-jumbo talk about the “Mozart effect” there’s plenty of evidence that musical toys are popular with this age group and companies like Leapfrog spend a lot of time designing these toys for educational purposes. There’s certainly plenty of stuff to pull and push on this one.

The Leapfrog Musical Table has 15 activities, over 40 melodies, and a volume control for when the parent has a headache – how nice! It also has detachable legs so it’ll work as a floor toy for infants and then as your child learns to stand you can put the legs back on so it is just the right height to help them gain their “sea legs.” This product also has both English and Spanish words to encourage language development – as a parent of a kid in a local spanish immersion class I appreciate this in a product.

If you’re looking for ideas for trips and activities this season then visit our special New England Christmas section here.

Feeling a little overwhelmed now, and still plenty of shopping in the New England outlets to go yet, so I’ll move on and be back in touch later this week.

Have a money-saving gift-buying week,

Cliff Calderwood
Publisher
New England Online Guide

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