13 Famous Toys You Shouldn't Buy Your Kids for Christmas

The holiday season is in full swing and now is the time to start looking for great presents to give to your children. From Nerf guns to talking Elmo dolls, there are many toy options that will show your kids just how much you love them while you're sitting together around the tree Christmas morning.

If that's your goal, avoid the following options at all costs. Here are 13 of the worst toys that you absolutely should not buy for your kids this Christmas. Not to say that there is anything wrong with the toys themselves, but your children will not want these…

Even if you've never played with Shrinky Dinks, you've likely heard the name. They are small plastic shapes that you can color in with markers, then you put them in an oven and they get even smaller. That's it, really. They just shrink. That sounds… fun?

A group of students at Harvard and MIT were able to use Shrinky Dinks to make self-assembling micro-robots, but your 7-year-old isn't going to make micro-robots. They are going to color some Dinosaur shapes blue and then bake them to get slightly smaller blue dinosaur shapes.

These are, in essence, the opposite of Shrinky Dinks, and are somehow even less interesting. They are tiny, creature-shaped sponges in plastic capsules that get slightly larger when wet, much like regular sponges. Unlike regular sponges, they can't be used to clean dishes, or for anything else other than disappointing children who believe the colorful cardboard packaging.

Hasbro has worked hard to make the Easy Bake Oven a great toy for all children. They changed the color scheme to make it more gender neutral, and they switched out the 100-watt lightbulb heating system for an actual electric heating element. The changes even got the oven inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2006.

However it's still just an oven, and you likely already have an oven. Just teach them to use that, and they can make real food.

Heelys are shoes with small wheels in their heels, so kids can roll around their school's hallways, the playground, and anywhere else that isn't up hill. Mainly, it’s just an excuse for them to take the easy way out, and no one likes a person who cheats at walking.

These multi-colored rubber bands are each shaped like different things, such as guitars, dinosaurs, butterflies, Higgs Boson particles and so forth. Kids take the bands, which are apparently "silly" for some reason, and put them around their wrists, rendering their shape completely impossible to determine.

Silly Bandz were one of the biggest fads of the last five years because apparently children will freak out over anything, and they were status symbols in schools across the country. But what it comes down to is Silly Bandz are just expensive rubber bands that you can't use. More like Stupid Bandz.

The Barbie franchise has tackled a lot of different topics, from Barbie's inability to stick with one profession to Barbie's responsible family planning. Pregnant Midge sort of falls into that second category.

This particular doll – which is hard to find and very expensive but still available online – has a magnetically detachable pregnant belly that, when removed, reveals a creepy plastic fetus inside her stomach cavity. It looks like it was designed by the serial killer from Se7en.

These foam-winged fairies would fly into the sky when you yanked a pull-string on their base. They would spin and spin, providing your child with hours of joy - or minutes of joy because inevitably they would fly off on top of a bookshelf or out the window or into a fireplace.

These massive inflatable boxing gloves are, without a doubt, a lot of fun – for college-age dorm-dwellers who decide to settle their beer-fueled arguments with a friendly bout of Socker Boppering. But when given to children, you'll see a rapid spiral into violent, Lord of the Flies-esque insanity that ends in tears. Inevitably, one of your smarter, meaner children won't inflate their glove as much as they should and their fist will make a bit more contact than their siblings are expecting.

This children's "craft project" was a variety of multi-colored plastic beads that kids could arrange into vague shapes. The beads would then form a laughably weak bond when spritzed with water. Aqua Dots were recalled in 2007 when it was discovered that, if the small candy-shaped, candy-colored beads were eaten by children, one chemical element in the beads allegedly metabolized into GHB – better known as the date-rape drug. So if you happen to stumble across these at a yard sale or thrift shop, just leave them alone.

If you've never ridden on a Sit and Spin, there is a joy to rocketing around in a tight circle at seemingly impossible speeds – until your hands slip and you rocket off the toy and into a wall, and then throw up everywhere.

This Bieber-haired, stubble-faced, hipster lumber jack is Shaving Fun Ken. "Get Ken ready for his date. Make him look his best for Barbie," reads Shaving Fun Ken's description on Amazon. "Help him out by shaving away his facial hair. Use the sponge-tipped razor in warm water and shave away the hair. Dip towel in cold water and wipe his face and hair grows back."

The immediate re-growth of his stubble perfectly mirrors the Sisyphean effort people face when it comes to shaving in real life. One could argue, though, that it's biased against bearded men. "Make his look his best for Barbie?" Are they implying that bearded men can't be handsome? Because they totally can.

This is not a toy, and it is certainly not a pet. It is, at best, a house plant, and at worst it's a dirty rock. No matter the shape, it still just amounts to a moss-covered terracotta sculpture with a green afro - and that is literally the best outcome.

This is a ball and a cup - with a string. Do you need more reasons for why this shouldn't count as a gift, or a toy?