Show Bags.

I was at uni with a guy nicknamed Show Bags - very appealing on the outside but in reality, full of crap.

So one of the many advantages of running your own business is flexibility. We had a client who had a presence at The Royal Melbourne Show so Mandy and I decided to take the kids and check it out.

It had been quite some time since Mandy had been to The Show, so she was surprised to see a small baby in a pram drinking chocolate milk from her baby bottle. I raised her when I saw two small children in a double stroller in The Show Bag Pavilion with Coke in their baby bottles. Classy.

Being the super nerdy dag that I am, I love the Craft & Cooking Pavilion. All the quilts and knitted bits, woodwork and decorated cakes. Some are incredible, many are hideous, but I'm dazzled never the less. So much so that after the kids had watched the biscuit decorating demonstration and I was still immersed in the preserves, I got the tap on the shoulder from Mands - we were out of there.

A tea cosy titled: Fifty Shades of Earl Grey.

It's no cheap outing with rides costing between $7 and $13 each!  So I was pleased to see Sass (aka Quinoa) get a driver for her dodgem' car. Why drive yourself when you can have a professional (aka the Carnie) do it for you?? Oh that's right - because you can't reach the accelerator.

The girls also had a go at reading the Channel 7 news....which was not only kinda cool because they immediately text you a link to the video - but it's FREE!!! Yes, really.

"Elle & Sass. Seven News."

Sugar stash as of this morning.

So back to the show bags. As a general observation, there seems to be an inverse correlation between household income and expenditure on show bags. There are dozens of $24 Kmart strollers weighed down with $240-worth of complete and utter rubbish.
The girls were allowed two each. Elle went straight for the magazine/beauty ones with make up, fast tan, bags and other things she'll actually use.

You won't recognise a brand -
it's all made up names - probably from China

The choice for Sass was slim - landfill (ie cheap crap that I will need to sneakily dispose of in the coming 12 months) or sugar (she's lost a heap of baby teeth lately and I didn't like that idea either.) We settled for one of each. But two weeks later, the sugar stash is still ludicrously large and I'm finding tell-tale wrappers everywhere.

So do you do The Show? What's your fave? And do you choose landfill or sugar for the kids' show bags?