General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Woman visits Toys R Us, pays off everyone's layaway. [View all]tblue37
(64,979 posts)ANY of the popular toys, you feel sad and left out. If the amount owed was that low, it suggests that these kids are not getting a greed fest for CHristmas, but that maybe this one time of the year the parents are trying to give the kid something special, something that he or she has been yearning for and has been hearing about from his or her peers for a long time,
We were poor, but every Christmas Mom tried to get each of us six kids a special gift that we had asked for--roller skates, a Barbie, a one year I even got a Schwinn bike, since my 3 older siblings had bikes, but I didn't yet. I think that was when I was 8, maybe 9.
We usually didn't get anything else that could be called a toy, but we did get things like tights or socks, gloves, or a warm knit scarf. Sometimes we would get an extra minor "toy" like a puzzle for all of us to put together, or a large box of crayons and a couple of coloring books to share. We each also got one of those net stockings with candy, which we would hoards and eat slowly until Eastr. Christmas, Easter, and Halloween were the only times we got candy, so we knew how to make each holiday's treasure of sweets last until the next holiday!
But at Christmas, if the request was not too much for her to swing, we each got one thing we had asked for--and she did it by putting those things on layaway and paying them off as slowly as the contract permitted.
(I am 64, so back when I was a kid there was no Toys R Us.)
I am glad some kids are going to get a nice Christmas gift, and that their parents will have a bit of extra cash to use for necessities--or even for another little gift for their kids.