And so the shopping arrives ...

Woohoo!  The first Xmas gifts ordered online have arrived.  I did the majority of baby's shopping online via traditional toy stores.  No electronic whiz, bang, boom crap for this little man.

This ride-on, wooden train came from Tierneys and I can't recommend them enough.  The train was ordered yesterday, their customer service is highly efficient and friendly -- a welcome diversion from the land of Toys R Us!   

I can't wait to see his face on Xmas day. 

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That's cute! I love those traditional wooden toys too, I've bookmarked that site, thanks.

I also bought toys from:

http://www.toypost.co.uk/
http://www.thelittlewoodshop.co.uk/

These haven't arrived yet, so I can't comment on their delivery, but they also had very good customer service.

cool thanks, they all have gorgeous looking toys

Sweet, I am bookmarking for the future! 

I'd be careful of:

http://www.catalogue.24studio.co.uk/home.asp

It seemed that calls were farmed out to an international call centre and rather than paying immediately, they wanted to take loads of details to make a credit check so that toys could be put on account.  We only ordered one thing from them, but all the intrusive questions for a credit application when I only wanted to pay right then and there was quite off-putting.

I'll put in a plug here for an old friend of mine who makes and sells traditional toys (they don't make all of them though). They have a great shop in historic Frederick, MD but also sell online.

http://www.dbeartoys.com/dbtweb.html

I'll put in a plug here for an old friend of mine who makes and sells traditional toys (they don't make all of them though). They have a great shop in historic Frederick, MD but also sell online.

http://www.dbeartoys.com/dbtweb.html

That is such a cute website!!!!  Wow!!!

Lovely sites!  A great reference for the future.  I've already caved and gone for some Leap Frog products that whiz and bang  .

Aww, don't get me wrong -- I don't think all toys that go whiz/bang are bad.  It seems like so many of the toys these days are the electronic, push-button, instant gratification kinda things.  Perhaps my dislike of them is a throw-back to my childhood when these types of toys weren't around and you had to use a little more imagination.

Aww, don't get me wrong -- I don't think all toys that go whiz/bang are bad.  It seems like so many of the toys these days are the electronic, push-button, instant gratification kinda things.  Perhaps my dislike of them is a throw-back to my childhood when these types of toys weren't around and you had to use a little more imagination.

So true.  My daughter loves musical toys.  She likes to line them all up and turn them on all at once and 'dance' and 'sing'.  So I just had to get her a couple of musical toys before she destroys my hearing for good.  It's my fault - whenever I'm at home TV is only allowed for 1 hour; the rest of the time the stereo is on the Scottish station or playing CDs.  Music is the script of the soul; where words are the story of our reason.