Most parents will be familiar with the syndrome. It's that dazed headache, perspiring brow and sinking feeling that comes from spending two hours in a toy megastore, wandering between the pink aisles, where the plastic dolls are clad in frills and aim-to-please smiles, and the green aisles, where the plastic dolls are clad in camouflage and armed with ferocious faces and deadly gadgets.
No prizes for guessing which dolls are for which sex.
My brief was "simple". Take a sum of money and "buy" Christmas toys for a five-year-old boy, Sam, and a 12-year-old girl, Alice. The catch: I had only £100 in total.
Both fictitious children had managed to prepare a list in advice. Alice wanted a keyboard and some arts and crafts stuff, while Sam had his sights set on a Star Wars assault kit, a walkie-talkie set, an Action Man and some surprises.
The good news from Cathal O'Dea, manager of that mecca of the toy-seeker - Smyth's, the one in Jervis Street, Dublin - was that only two toys were sold out (Baby Furby and the Baby Born Care Centre) and neither was on my list. The bad news was that the assault set, which contains two laser guns or "authentically styled blasters" to use manufacturer-speak, cost £49.99. It was flanked by the Star Wars Battle Set, also at £49.99. Sorry Sam. Instead, a Star Wars Droid Fighter (three vehicles in one, £22.99) went into the basket.
O'Dea is consoling. I'll have better luck with the walkie-talkies and the Action Man, he promises. In almost all cases, the non-branded toys are just as good as the branded, he adds. So, we peer at the walkie talkies. Buy Tarzan's set and, with the help of Tarzan and Terk, "be heard across the jungle" (range: 100 feet, price: £24.99). Next, the ubiquitous Star Wars logo adorns a set which claims to be the "authentically styled" - the emphasis on authenticity is beginning to grate a little - "communicator used by Obi-Wan Kenobi" (range: 30 metres, cost: £17.99).
Beside them, the less hyped versions - Combat Action and The Communicator cost considerably less at £9.99 and £7.99 respectively. No range is given on the packs but O'Dea says they are all roughly the same; the difference is in the marketing and the association with hit films. The Communicator takes its place in Sam's basket.
It's now 10 a.m. and the shop is beginning to fill. The airy, plenty-of-room-in-the-aisles feeling has been replaced by one of angst as parents juggle baskets, trollies and lists. One small blond tot is running around the aisles yelling "Baby Born, Baby Born!"
Pausing at the Action Man range, I debate the merits of the Ninja Kick figure (£16.99), an Action Man driller (£18.99) or a straightforward Action Man dressed for jungle warfare (£8.99). The less-touted rival range, Power Corps, is considerably cheaper, with the basic 12-inch figure in military uniform at £4.99, the "Power Ninja" at £6.99 and GI Joe, attired for going in-country in 'Nam, at £6.99.
Deploring the man-as-aggressor theme, I nonetheless fling the 12-inch warrior into the basket, hoping the smell of unbridled testosterone would be contained by the packaging.
The Lego section is somewhat more reassuring, with make-and-do educational overtones. It might even be possible to play with the completed toys without imagining yourself deep in bloody warfare. I opt for space exploration in the form of a small rocket-making kit costing £15.99. The larger deluxe kit is beyond the confines of the budget at £52.99.
And that was Sam's Christmas stocking full: Droid (£22.99), walkie-talkie (£7.99), Power Corps figure (£4.99) and Lego (£15.99). A total of £51.96 (excluding batteries!).
TIME TO HEAD for the aisles of the make-believe homemaking, childminding, self-adorning child - in other words, the girls' toys. First, to matters musical. There are four Casio keyboards ranging in price from £149.99 to £34.99. Unfortunately, this latter keyboard, the only one to fit my purse, does not have full-size keys. It looks like, and is, a toy, useless for a 12-year-old girl. Sorry Alice.
There are better bargains to be had in the crafts section. A Get Set Chocolate Factory costs £23.99. It includes two 125g packages of chocolate, six plastic moulds, an egg mould, two easter egg moulds, a funnel and a spatula. Beside it, the KSG Pastimes Chocolate Candy set costs £10.99 for what appears to be a similar product, including 500g of chocolate candy chips, 20 moulds, an egg mould, a melting bowl and spatula.
So, first purchase for Alice: the Pastimes set.
Next, a John Adams hairkit with four colour hair crayons, six butterfly clips, and a bead-shower hair fastener at £4.49, drops into the basket, along with a friendship-bracelet-making kit at £2.99 and a body-art kit, complete with mehndis, bindis, transfers and glitter gel, also £2.99.
Then after much internal deliberation between the merits of a 3D model-making kit or an electronic diary, I plump for the 3D Alpine Castle with its 1,000 pieces (£21.99) and the promise of a little Christmas peace and quiet. And, finally, a beanie-baby kitten at £4.99. This has the undoubted attraction of coming with "it's own date of birth". The total for Alice comes to £48.44.
The real-life verdict: a 12-year-old neighbour liked Alice's presents and would be happy to get a similar basket. But she felt she had enough body art and wanted a Playstation game instead. This would cost £39.99, bringing the total (even after dropping the hairkit, body-art set and friendship-bracelet kit) to £77.96 - well outside the budget.
And while, with a five-year-old, I suspect parents have a good chance of substituting non-branded for branded products, as kids get older that becomes more and more difficult, if not impossible.
