’tis the Season to Miss Shopping at Toys R Us
Am I the only one that misses shopping at Toys R Us?
The other day while waiting at the stupid red light at the Black Horse Pike and Leipzig Avenue in Mays Landing, I happened to look over at the shopping center across the street and someone had turned on the old Toys R Us sign (a peak inside looks like it's either being occasionally used as a warehouse or something, 'cause it looks like people are in there once and a while).
Seeing that sign lit-up got me to think about how much I miss shopping at Toys R Us before Christmas. Well, any time of the year, really.
My daughter is almost seven so she's at that perfect age for wanting to go up and down every aisle of a toy store and it's just not the same doing that in Walmart or Target. Not that there's anything wrong with those stores, but there's something about being in a store that only sells toys around the holidays. It kinda helps you get immersed in the season if you have kids.
Of course, there are many great local toy stores across South Jersey -- we recently wrote about one in Hammonton, for example -- but I kinda miss the hustle and bustle of making those late night trips into Toys R Us a few days before Christmas trying to find that one thing that she really, really, really, really, really wanted.
Sure, now you can find it on Amazon and have it delivered to your door in a matter of hours in some cases, but what fun is that?
Toys R Us did have their share of problems as a company. One of the biggest complaints from people before they closed all of their stores across the country a few years ago was that Toys R Us was just a giant warehouse with boxes of toys on shelves. Perhaps if TRU had areas set-up where kids could have actually played with some toys they could have sold more (I don't know about you, but if my daughter plays with something and really likes it, I'm not leaving the store without it).
Anyway, 'tis the season that I miss Toys R Us.