Happy Holidays! Okay, I know that for most of you, that holiday is Halloween but for bloggers, Christmas starts early! Around the end of the summer, I start to keep a lookout for all of the hottest new toys to share in my holiday gift guide. This year, things are looking a little different. The Toy Insider hosts incredible toy expos every year but 2020 really caused all of us adapt to virtual connections in the most beautiful way. I am truly blown away by the advanced technology as well as the hard work The Toy Insider put into making the 2020 Holiday of Play virtual event as absolutely real as possible.
The Event
When it was time for the event to begin, I signed on to be greeted with a quick introduction video and then it was off to the races! There was an entire schedule of events, like the Marvel Battleworld Trivia Giveaway Event at the Funko Games booth, or the adorable Mane Beauty Braiding & Style Showcase at the Breyer booth. I was able to attend any event I liked, or browse at my leisure. Roaming around the expo floor was very realistic. There were labeled booths and avatars to represent other event guests. I was really impressed with the attention to detail on behalf of The Toy Insider! There were banners and even holiday decorations placed around the room as they would have been in real life. It was fantastic!
When I arrived in front of a booth, I had a variety of options. I could click on a few videos to get an idea of the products available or go to the links provided to visit websites and social media of this particular brand. Then, I could interact with the booth representatives directly, either via a chat or by clicking on their Zoom. Let me tell you that offering a text-only option certainly gives my fellow anxiety sufferers a less stressful option to interact, and that is not an opportunity that someone could really utilize in a real life setting! What a blessing! I was far too eager to see demonstrations of products and meet their energetic representatives though, so I Zoomed with as many as I could!
The Toy Representatives
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the enthusiastic representatives behind these great toys! It’s one thing to communicate via e-mail with kind brand representatives but it’s an entirely new thing to watch them demonstrate a product they truly believe in! Their excitement certainly helped motivate mine and I wanted to mention that because it made me happy. I truly appreciate every person who took the time to show me how cool and educational their toys were. I wasn’t able to speak with everyone as some rooms were quite packed, but I did watch how they interacted with people and how excited they were to conduct their contests. I watched the Breyer mane styling contest, Snap Ships building contest, and participated in the Marvel Battleworld contest, with the help of my husband. Both were so fun!
The TOYS
Now we’re at everyone’s favorite part of this recap! Holiday of Play had toys for kids of all ages and the kid in all of us! I plan to get a little more in-depth with my upcoming holiday gift guide after I’ve personally played with some of these. For now, I’d love to give you somewhat of an overview of the coolest toys I was able to see!
Breyer Mane Beauty Horse Styling Head – These beautiful styling heads should hold my daughter over until I’m able to get her a real horse in a few years! It comes with hair clips and coils to do all sorts of styles with it. I didn’t even have one of these and I sat through the contest just because I loved seeing how all the children had styled their manes!
Circuit Explorer – Learning circuits is so cool and Circuit Explorer makes it simple to figure out. They light up, make sounds, and their sets can be combined, which gives a lot of options for creativity with building!
PlayMonster Snap Ships – Build your ships and battle each other! You can build the ships by the example or come up with anything you want but either way, there’s a functioning shooter ready for the battle! There was a fun competition at Holiday of Play to see which kid could build their ship the fastest!
Tiny Baking – I’ve got a crazy obsession with tiny stuff and apparently, there is an entire line of SmartLab Toys devoted to tiny things, like Tiny Science. I could have watched the Tiny Baking demonstration all day long because I was fascinated and found it so cute! What appeals to me most about Tiny Baking is actually that your kids can learn about following recipes and baking wasting oodles of ingredients!
National Geographic Digital Microscope for Kids – I’m not gonna lie, I want this one for me. I know my kids will love it too! It’s a microscope but I think it’s a little easier to see and it’s also very portable! I love that there’s an SD card so you can save the pictures and video of what you’re learning about.
I could talk about toys all day long but it will be easier to just follow our blog for more holiday favorites coming soon to our holiday gift guide!
You can also see more of The Toy Insider’s hottest toy picks for 2020 here!