Toys are not only on the kids’ Christmas list this year. More and more &uot;toys&uot; have been made for adults over the past few years.

Unlike children and toys, however, adults tend to take Christmas holiday shopping to a whole new level of ridiculous. Many shoppers this year have found themselves waiting in line for more than 24 hours. A few shoppers have even gone as far as camping out in front of their favorite store to be the first ones at the door on opening day.

A few of the toys that people have been killing themselves over have included everything from Tickle-me Elmo to the new PlayStation 3. The shoppers who have not wanted to wait in line have worked up a new theory. They have been shopping online and paying almost double the retail price just to get their Christmas items. Some adults have been acting like children just to get these &uot;hot&uot; items for themselves in most cases.

Spending outrages amounts of money to be the first to have something seems a little out of hand. Most stores realize the fact that if people want something for a gift, they will go to the end of the earth to find it, giving them the perfect opportunity to jack up prices and create a little more profit for themselves. People are also known to purchase popular items and resell them online for a profit.

Many people seem to become blind to the facts of retail. If you want it, then there won’t be many available, but if you wait two months then there will be too many on the shelves. Tickle-me-Elmo was a major hit last year and has been in with the top dogs this year. The doll was impossible to find from the middle of November through the middle of January. By the end of January, however, the stores were overstocked with the toy and had to basically beg people to buy them.

People make toys popular by creating the tension of wanting to get them before everybody else can. It is understandable when people want to buy gifts that their children want for Christmas, but in many cases it appears that the joy of giving has been replaced by our lust for the almighty dollar. – The Clanton Advertiser