Holidays are coming

Last night I watched The Late Late Toy Show for the first time in years. Back in the day it was a sacred annual ritual up there with the best of 'em. You'd have your bath, get into your jammies and snuggle up with the family to see how long you could hold out this year. Inevitably by the end of Part One your eyelids were drooping, and you could barely keep it together through the ad break. Then the next morning the disappointment would hit as you realised you'd missed a whole 50% of the toys and entertainment. You weren't big yet. There's a photo of 7yr old Rosie in her favourite Winnie The Pooh dressing gown, head falling off the couch, limbs akimbo, dead to the world in front of The Toy Show. It's amazing my parents even allowed it to happen (those were the days when tv was only allowed on weekends and even then it was just half an hour a day), but they couldn't fight The Toy Show. It was an institution. Then in 1999 Gaybo hung up his Santy hat and Pat Kenny took over. After that I never watched it. Pat didn't have any charisma, the kids didn't like him, the whole thing just faded into awkward cringey-ness. Plus I was 10 by then and bordering on too old for toy show.

Last night though, it all came flooding back. Of course this time I stayed up til the end, and it was accompanied by a nice glass of wine but still, it was at its core the same Pre-Christmas bonanza I remember from my youth. I laughed, I coveted, I cringed at some of the acts. It was just like the good old days. Because this year Pat Kenny was nowhere to be seen. Ryan Tubridy was in charge and he did a damn fine job.

There were Billy Barry Kids, mini Irish dancers, Westlife, Jedward, Junior Culchie of the year, a hilarious kid named JohnJoe, christmas cheer and of course TOYS. My favourite of which I'm not sure can be called a toy really, but it's a portable dvd projector and it looks awesome.

So if anyone's looking for an expensive gift idea for, say, me...
(Ok I was going to put a link to where you could buy one but attempting to do so nearly crashed my computer, so never mind!)