Kennedy: Toys ‘R’ Us shutdown a sad day

FILE - In this Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2017, photo, shoppers walk into a Toys R Us store, in San Antonio. Toys R Us's management has told its employees that it will sell or close all of its U.S. stores. The 70-year-old retailer is headed toward shuttering its U.S. operations, jeopardizing the jobs of some 30,000 employees while spelling the end for a chain known to generations for its sprawling stores and Geoffrey the giraffe mascot. The closing of the company's 740 U.S. stores will finalize the downfall of the chain and force toy makers and landlords to scramble for alternatives. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

By Mark Kennedy July 8, 2018 3 min read

I’ll always remember Toys R Us as Santa’s showroom.

When it was reported late last month that the last of the chain’s toy stores was closing, I was surprised at how much it bummed me out.

It felt like a gut punch, actually. Not to be over-dramatic, but it felt like a part of our kids’ childhood had been wadded up and thrown away. Heck, I remember shopping Babies R Us for infant car seats and onesies before our first child was born.

Mark Kennedy

When our boys – now 16 and 11 – were younger, we’d make several trips a year to Toys R Us at Hamilton Place or in Hixson to examine the merchandise, especially in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Convincing the boys to stay off the bikes and out of the electric cars was a major challenge.

The big-box stores – such as Walmart and Target – were our go-to places for friends’ birthday parties. But Toys R Us, with its miles of aisles, was definitely the place to go to assemble a letter to the North Pole.