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The special prize for creating an unnecessary drama this week must surely be awarded to Geoff Sheffield of toy chain The Entertainer, who has sent parents into conniptions by saying that if they wanted to avoid festive disappointment, they would be advised to load up on Christmas presents “now”. He attributed the toy scarcity to Covid-19, a global truck driver shortage and various complications in distribution that have found Santa’s sackload being waylaid in Asia as governments have prioritised shipments of face masks and PPE.
Things ramped up when the same doomsday prophecy was delivered on This Morning, a chit-chat show on British television that goes out at around elevenses and entertains the poorly, the stay-at-home parent, the stoner and the unemployed.
Only one of these demographics was likely disturbed by speculation that stockings this year might be hanging empty. But they were vocal about the impending disaster nonetheless. The delightfully impressionable Holly Willoughby, who co-presents the show with Phillip Schofield, spoke for many with the realisation that there were only 100 days left to shop before Christmas, telling viewers she had gone into a “cold sweat”.
Panic has set in as we approach The Great Toy Shortage of 2021 and imagine children’s tiny stricken faces as they find no gifts beneath the tree. What will happen if little Tommy is denied his baby Yoda? What kind of parents will we look like if we cannot shower our offspring with plastic tat? To counter this dark period of consumer uncertainty, stores are upping orders to secure more product. Retailers are urging us to shop now. The high-street retailer John Lewis has revealed that it will be chartering extra ships in order to deliver Christmas: one imagines an Elizabethan-style flotilla of tall ships sailing westwards, minding an urgent cargo of CoComelon puzzles, Scalextric and Super Mario Karts.
No doubt the story is just a bit of scaremongering aimed at soft-hearted parents who are still naive enough to care. I can vaguely recall the Christmas my father went to insane lengths to find a Transformers watch that had captivated my younger brother, but the effort required was so exhausting that in subsequent years he pretty much just wrote us all a cheque. It can surely be no coincidence either that only days after the toy experts listed their predictions for this year’s bestsellers there has followed news of a toy shortage urging us to panic buy.
In a piece published by Good Housekeeping, Peter Jenkinson, aka the Toyologist, has put his money on all things Paw Patrol, as well as the Matchbox Maverick Top Gun aircraft carrier that heralds the Tom Cruise reboot of the film. Trying to imagine anyone going nuts for a film about the fighter pilot seems extremely hard to swallow considering Top Gun is about one billion years old. Then I checked out the Matchbox offering on Amazon (which was still available, I can reassure you) and decided that the Toyologist might have a point.
A Lego Elf Club House is also expected to best the sales lists — the construction-brick behemoth has seen a surge in lockdown sales this year. And the traditional wooden train is due an uptick. Which is entirely plausible. Because there will always be granola parents who pride themselves on buying exceptionally boring granola toys.
But the shortage of elf club houses available for purchase is a mere distraction when, at this rate, we’ll be lucky to get so much as a Brussels sprout to eat. Toy shortages should be the least of our anxieties when it seems apparent we’re approaching another winter of discontent. Currently, there’s a dearth of food in supermarkets, a global natural gas crisis and Britons are waiting months for blood tests because the NHS is running out of tubes. Well, bottles, actually.
In the shops, one is struck by the sight of mysteriously empty shelves. An Italian friend told me last weekend in deadly earnest that her friends are leaving Britain owing to the scarcity of decent mozzarella, which is now prohibitively expensive.
I too have been affected. Thanks to an incredibly irritating endorsement by the Duchess of Cambridge, and supply issues, I have been waiting months to secure a tube of Kiehl’s Creme with Silk Groom haircare. Months, I tell you. I thought that Brexit might leave us stranded with a jar of Bovril. I never imagined it would mean frizzy-hair emollients would be so terrifyingly scarce.
Not that Britons are really terrified of shortages, because deep down we live to queue. Our pulses quicken at the thought of scavenging for trophies: it’s what really turns us on. This latest toy shortage will have stirred the collective conscience with an excitement that Freud would probably label as a psychosexual thrill.
This weekend will no doubt see a spurt of panic buying — it’s almost our patriotic duty at this point. Recent months have seen us breaking out in a “cold sweat” over shortages of everything from loo roll through to lumber. Now, for extra merriment, we can obsess over the procurement of Marvel toys and Barbies, too.
Email Jo at jo.ellison@ft.com
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The winter of our baby dino discontent
The winter of our baby dino discontent