What to Buy a Little Boy Who Loves Wheels, Cars and Trains for Christmas

A child that likes trains and cars I find is a child who can entertain themselves for hours. When Aaron was very young we hooked up with old friends of ours from school. Our school friend's wife explained that her son adores trains and tracks - she showed us his favourite wooden track that he plays with for hours. Aaron loved it immediately, and at that point was already into Thomas, so I went the next day to buy him a simple inexpensive (figure of eight) wooden train track and we've never looked back. He progressed quickly so Christmas 2012, by which time he was two and a half, was all about trains and tracks - he received a large wooden town and track from Santa 2012 and a Thomas take 'n' play track which was from our Uni friend Rob. He still plays with them both two years on and there've been many tracks added to his collection since. So if you have a little boy in your family, or your extended family, then you know what to buy them for Christmas - hours of fun!

Now, every time we get back from a day out he's on the floor playing with cars, trains, trucks or tractors. Anything as long as it's got wheels, except now he's big into Planes too, but his recent "Dusty" Plane DOES have wheels. Of course he's into role playing so he adds voices to the cars that don't already have them. The mood determines whether the play is gentle or a bit more rough - sometimes cars crash, but he happily plays it out.

Tesco has a huge online toy selection that would satisfy all of Aaron's car toy tastes and needs, from BigJigs tracks to Brio, from Hot Wheels, to Fisher Price, Thomas, Peppa Pig, and Planes. If I showed him their toy selection I think he'd want it all. It's all there with the added bonus of being able to earn Clubcard points as you shop. Selected products even qualify for Clubcard Boost - a great thing when there's so much you can do with Clubcard points. It's fabulous to see additional Take n Play track pieces there too, as I'd love to add on to some of Aaron's main stay tracks to make them a bit different and further fire up his already extensive imagination. Personally I wouldn't recommend a garage, if your son is anything like Aaron. He played with his garage so little, that I gave it to his best mate, who to be fair plays with it a lot more. Aaron prefers playing on the freedom of the whole floor, or on a track.

I'd highly recommend the large Lightning McQueen cars as that's another thing Aaron's played with every day for two years. He has about 5 large cars from the Lightning McQueen range - some even have voices and pull out wings. Currently on the Tesco site there is a "Disney Cars Silver McQueen 1:24" remote controlled car that is only 20 pounds and qualifies for ClubCard boost!

Actually I'll adopt an Aaron head. I'll channel 4 year old Aaron and tell you what his top picks would be :-)

This is the Lightning McQueen car I mentioned:

Aaron's had one of these for years and adores it, so it would be perfect for a younger boy:

 it's only 13 pounds.

I've seen this advertised on TV and Aaron would love it. Fisher-Price Thomas Avalanche Escape set. It's 30 pounds and qualifies for ClubCard Boost:

If you are buying for a young Thomas fan then this is a great starter set:

it's only 10 pounds, but it DOES qualify for Clubcard Boost and will amaze little ones as the Thomas is motorized. Grandad was the first person to buy Aaron a motorized Thomas. Like this it was a simple circular track yet Aaron simply adored it.

So, if you are looking to do toy shopping, don't know where to start, and can't face the shops (or the wind and rain) buy online from the comfort of your armchair. Lots to choose from and lots to bring joy to a child this Christmas.

Aaron's favourite toy of the last few weeks is his Mega Bloks First Builders Fast Tracks Rescue Team which Tesco is selling for 32 pounds and it does also qualify for Clubcard boost. Below you can see it in action and this is a configuration that we invented which is not on the box. The picture top left has a red and yellow car from another Mega Bloks set which we also have that is currently 14.99, as the set below actually comes with 3 rescue cars from each of the 3 emergency services. I love this particular configuration and we had it set up like this for weeks.

WOW, I was going to end this post by saying that even though I am advocating playing with wheels. Every type of wheel be it tractor, trailer, train, car, whatever... Aaron also plays with other things. The main one being his beloved Transformer Bumblebee, but I just checked on Tesco and they are selling it for 25 pounds! Gulps! I paid 35 for it from Toys R Us, but it seems it's now on sale for 30 and Tesco are taking a further 5 pounds off that. So Transformers 4: Age of Extinction Mega One Step Bumblebee is only 25 pounds. Yes, I am gutted, could have saved myself a tenner and got boost points too!

Happy Christmas shopping. This was us last year (hhhm I only wish I knew where that jumper is):