THE HOTTEST XMAS TOY YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO FIND: HATCHIMAL

One of the hottest toys for the holidays is said to be Hatchimal, an interactive robotic toy. Similar to Tamagotchis, a Hatchimal is a furry animatronic toy encased in a speckled plastic egg. To get the toy to hatch, kids must interact with the shell – by touching, tapping or rubbing it – for up to 30 minutes. After the toy is “hatched,” it must be nurtured over days and weeks and it will mature. You can raise your new mechanical friend through three life stages, and teach it to walk, talk, dance, play games and more. Cost: $50.
* Sure. Fifty bucks, the thing hatches, and your kid doesn’t like the color.
* Be careful. Once it comes out of the egg and finds out it was given the stupid name “Hatchimal”, it’s going to be pretty angry.
* Sounds like a pretty complex toy. How soon will it break, on a scale of 1 to FurReal Friends?
* What three stages of life? Infancy, adolescence and that time when you realize your child has forgotten you and left you to live out your existence in silent despair?
* During Christmas vacation with the kids at home, it would be worth 50 bucks for a half hour of time away from them.
* It’s a hot Christmas toy so you know what that means: If you don’t get one for your your kid, then you’re not a very good parent.
* In fact, you probably don’t love the kid much at all.
* We’re still at the stage where we teach the robots. Later, the robots will be teaching us.
* Not just teaching us, but ordering us around.
* Wait, maybe we could build a robot that does our Christmas shopping for us. We could still win this thing.