Around two weeks ago, I wrote up this blog post, covering some of the cheapo, generic stocking stuffer toys that permeate the Christmas sections in most of the country's department stores. While bendable Santa Claus figures and novelty coal aren't without their place in the world, it's just as true that very few kids would respond to receiving such items with anything more than a faint giggle.

Fortunately, most of the major toy companies have developed stocking stuffers with some added oompf. They're more expensive, but pretty much everything on the planet is more expensive than a crude, bendable Santa Claus figurine forged in a country nobody has ever heard of.

Basically, what toy companies do is take items from their most popular lines and shrink 'em down to stocking stuffer size, usually in holiday-themed packaging. It's a fairly new trend and not one that I had the pleasure of growing up with. Previously, the big issue with filling a Christmas stocking was finding anything that could actually fit in it. For that endeavor, these toys go a long way.

Adorably packaged and actually quite nice for toys so small, the toys shown above all hover around the $5 range. Not exactly "cheap" for what they are, but if you're going to go through the trouble of stuffing a fuzzy sock, you might as well do it with something the recipient can be happy about. Click "more" for a closer look!

Miniature Tranformers Movie Figures (Click here to see it unpackaged!)
Though lacking in any kind of holiday-themed packaging, I'm taking these figures' inclusion in Target's stocking stuffer section to mean that that's what they're for. They're kind of like what you'd expect a McDonald's Happy Meal Transformers toy to be like, only they're far more detailed and badass than anything that we'd get for free.

I only saw Starscream and Megatron on the rack, but it's safe to assume that the micro collection includes a few of the good guys, too. I chose Starscream, mainly because he affords me the only opportunity in X-E history to make a reference to football: Starscream's impossibly thick torso makes him look like some kind of robot linebacker.

The miniature figures' transformations are obviously dumbed down from the intricate nature of the full-sized originals, but they work well enough. Knowing full well from my days spent with Cliffjumper and Ravage that there's nothing better than owning Transformers that can fit in your pocket, these are great little extras that'd make any kid's Christmas morning 2% sweeter.

Hot Wheels Holiday Hot Rods (Click here to see them unpackaged!)
Hot Wheels cars were used to stuff stockings long before Mattel ever decided to market them as such. It was pretty much a given that every small boy's stocking would include at least one Hot Wheels car, for reasons I talked about in this entry's intro. Not everyone had one of those gigantically oversized novelty stockings. Most of us had the standard-sized ones. Hot Wheels cars were among the very few popular, recognizable toys that could fit inside stockings. It didn't hurt that they retailed for under a buck.

The boxed Holiday Hot Rods sets include three cars each, all with a metallic sheen, and all with negotiably holiday-themed color schemes. I believe there are four different three-packs available; I went with this one because the middle car looked like something out of Tron. Actually, that's a lie. I just liked the red tinted windows on the bottom car. It doesn't make for a great pop reference, but it's the truth.

See 'n Say Junior (Click here to see it unpackaged!)
We've all played with a See 'n Say toy at some point (or something similar under a different name), and here, they've turned the classic, talking wheely things into perfectly-sized stocking stuffers. Merging the See 'n Say with random children's television characters to form cute-but-freaky mutants, this particular version features Elmo in all of his falsetto glory, happily singing one of four short tunes depending on where you move his chest arrow to.

I don't normally cover preschool toys on the site, because I can't bring myself to cater to a demographic that's just as prone to eat their toys as they are to play with them. Still, if you're in charge of stuffing the sock of someone woefully young, See 'n Say Junior is an excellent choice.

Phlat Ball Jr. (Click here to see it unpackaged!)
I'm a little out of the loop when it comes to Phlat Balls, but if this miniature version is any indication, I've got a pretty good idea of how they work. You start off by squishing the ball down into a frisbee-shape. There's a spring and suction cups inside, so it will hold this shape for an undetermined length of time before popping back into a ball. It's basically a game of hot potato: You're supposed to take turns tossing it back and forth with your buddies, and the person who has it in their hands when it pops back into a ball-shape loses.

That's a pretty shitty game, so I assume that most kids who own Phlat Balls have figured out other, cooler things to do with them. To help sell the toys as holiday stocking stuffers, the junior-sized versions come in two color schemes: Red with green trim, and green with red trim. I picked green, because cash rules everything around me.

Since I try to maintain a $20 spending cap for blog posts, I'll have show you the rest of this year's coolest stocking stuffers on another day. Which sucks, because I want to write about Christmas-colored Play-Doh right now.

Posted by Matt on 11/15/2007. E-mail me!