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"All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth." You've undoubtedly heard that catchy and somewhat obnoxious little holiday ditty. It's cute, but do you ever wonder if it had a much more sinister meaning back in the day before they started fluoridating the water? Hey, if they can write a nursery rhyme about the plague, why not a Christmas song about gingivitis?

You can tell when it's that time of year again. The leaves are falling, there's a bitter nip in the air, 18,000 different Santa decorations are popping up on store shelves and I find myself writing yet another article revealing my resentment over the cool toys kids have now that I didn't have as a child.

As usual, I look to my nieces for inspiration. Recently, the littlest one expressed her desire to have a new Nintendo DS™ for Christmas. When I say "new", of course I mean ANOTHER ONE. She wants the newest version. The one she got last year plays little video games, sends text messages to the person sitting three feet away, and has interactive fashion shows. This year's model does quantum physics, splits the atom and balances the federal budget. Which is good, because honestly, I'd take my nieces over Congress any day.

Okay, let's just go ahead and get the phrase out of the way. IN....MY....DAY. There, I said it. "In my day" is code for that time in your life when you could get out of bed and not have some new ache or pain; when your back bent over all the way on the first try; when you ran down the stairs, two at a time; when things came to you in an instant; when.....hmmm, wasn't I writing about toys?

Oh yes. My generation – which would be the 70's – thought we were the greatest because most of our toys had the phrase "batteries sold separately" stamped on the box. That's right. Forget that generation that won that World War. They didn't even have TV's. Which meant they couldn't watch all of the wonderful commercials for toys. They had to be content with bland things that required momentum or a silly little thing called imagination. We had batteries! We had the ability to harness electricity for the sake of our amusement!

But we just had little batteries. Nowadays, kids use toys with car batteries. And that's because they actually have cars. Seriously. My nieces have a miniature Jeep® that drives around like a real car. My generation was content with a Sit-n-Spin™. When I think about it, we really were pretty simple. Our biggest aspiration when we were six was to see how dizzy we could get without throwing up our lunch.

The Big Wheel™ was something special. Or so we thought. I personally believe it was a conspiracy by parents to give them one more year before they had to run behind you holding the back of the bicycle seat while you learned to ride a two-wheeler. That's right. I'm on to you, you giant parent people. It's like when they tried to scare us into believing our teeth would fall out if we didn't brush them every night. (Well, that one might be true.)

Looking back over some of the big holiday toys of the past, I'm not sure every new year signaled progress. Can anyone tell me what exactly was so great about a Cabbage Patch Doll™? Until then, the trend had been moving toward making dolls more realistic. In the 70's, the dolls starting drinking bottles, making cooing noises and even wetting their diapers. Then in 1983 came these puffy, yarn haired things that looked like babies that were born too close to a nuclear plant. And am I to infer from the name that one day someone was in the produce section at the supermarket, saw a head of cabbage and declared "I have the next great toy idea!"?

My friend, who I'll call "Nicole", was a tomboy and she had a My Buddy™ doll. You know what that was? It was a Cabbage Patch Doll with wider-set eyes, overalls and a bowl haircut. Isn't it funny how you could slap some tennis shoes and a baseball cap on a girl's toy and get boys to play with it? That's right boys – no one retooled the overseas sweat shops just to make your stuff. You were all playing with the same toy! Hah!

Again, I have to think these dolls were a parental conspiracy. Get kids to think babies are born in a cabbage patch out in a field somewhere and adults can put off having "the sex talk" for one more year. Very clever, you giant parent people.

Another toy I came across while researching this article was something called Military Action Jack™. Basically, it was a Ken Doll with a helmet and some crappy little weapons. The box touted these as being made from unbreakable Poly Plastic. Two things strike me about this. First, if it's a toy made for boys, there's no such thing as unbreakable. If my brother can crack my Legos, forget it. Secondly, what is Poly Plastic? Doesn't that sound like another carcinogen? There's probably a class-action lawsuit going on as we speak.

I looked up the hottest action figure for this year. Apparently, that would be the Deluxe Aggression Series of wrestling superstars. Okay, I'm all in favor of truth in advertising, but do we really need to make toys with the word "aggression" in the title? If you look at the small print on the back of the box, it says "steroids sold separately". I'm almost afraid to look up the hot new Barbie® dolls for this year. I don't care to see the "insecure and looking for a father figure, overly promiscuous Barbie" series.

That said, I have to admit that the detailing is quite impressive on these wrestling dolls. (Yes boys, action figures are, in fact, dolls. They just call them action figures to make you feel better.) Another nice feature is all the extra hinges. In fairness to Ken though, he was never required to do a pile driver or a figure four leg lock. But wouldn't it have been nice if you could have gotten your Ken and Barbie to hug more realistically? Remember at the end of the date when you made Ken and Barbie kiss? It always looked like two people in body casts who happened to stumble into each other.

While I appreciate the realistic features and greater flexibility, I still don't think I'm comfortable with action figures that come with accessories like a break-away coffee table or a stretcher. I confess, the "steroids sold separately" deal was one of my comic lies, but I swear, those last two items are totally real.

Despite my serious reservations about some of the new toys, I have to admit, one great thing about them is that they're definitely not just for kids. Last year, I went out and bought Rock Band™, the interactive video game with the fake instruments you play along with real music. As a child, I imagined being in a rock band. As an adult, I actually get to relive that fun by playing my little drum kit. Unfortunately, my supervisor, who I'll call "Nicole", doesn't let me have any extended time off to tour.