Last chance to shop

Mathis Winkler

NEWPORT BEACH -- Yes, it was the day before Christmas. Yes, people

were running around trying to find that last minute gift.

But despite a constant stream of customers and a lot of presents

waiting to be wrapped, the mood at Toy Boat on Westcliff Drive seemed

cheerful nevertheless.

“Do you guys have any potato guns left?” Janice James, the store’s

manager, asked over the phone to a colleague at the Corona del Mar sister

store.

A customer had already bought 17 guns, which shoot pellets out of

potatoes. Luckily, the guys in Corona del Mar had just the four extra

ones the woman had been looking for.

“Anything else we need, gang?” James asked her co-workers. For now,

the guns seemed to be the only request.

A few aisles over, 8-year-old Whitney Regan said that he still needed

a gift for his sister Katie, 10.

Whitney said that he’d asked Santa to bring him a trick bike and added

that he wouldn’t mind getting an Action Factory set as well.

“We already have that,” jumped in his younger brother, Sean, 7, who

had already bought Katie a beanie baby.

“I know,” said Whitney. “I want another one.”

That prompted a reply from Dennis Regan, the boys’ father.

“The question is, ‘What don’t we have?’ ” he said, adding that apart

from Whitney’s gift for his sister, everything else had been taken care

of.

“My wife has bought everything,” he said. “It’s division of labor. She

buys. I pay.”

Janet MacDonald, who’d brought along her mother, Mary Butler, her

sister, Carissa Butler, as well as her 21-month-old daughter, Gwenyth,

and her month-old son, Devin, said that she was in the final moments of a

very long shopping spree.

“I started my shopping in November,” she said. “And I still have stuff

left.”

It being just about noon, MacDonald said that the group would probably

run around for a couple more hours before finally getting home to

celebrate.

A couple hours “max,” said her mother, holding the sleeping Devin in

her arm. “Then we’re going home.”

But not everyone at the store still had shopping to do.

“We’re just here to play with the toys,” said Tom McCarthy, who’d

stopped by with his 3-year-old daughter, Clare, after having breakfast

nearby.

A few sprinkles of toast and jelly still left around the corners of

her mouth, Clare said that she’d asked Santa for a doll this year.

“And a pink Razor scooter,” said her father. “But Santa has to follow

age guidelines.”

With a few more hours to go before closing time, store manager James

said that she’d tried to squeeze in her own Christmas shopping. And

because most of the gifts she needed were for her eight grandchildren,

James luckily sat right at the source.

“I mostly bought toys,” she said and laughed.