It's often said that parents should forget about giving children expensive gifts - just give them a cardboard box instead and they will have hours of fun.
Spare a thought then for an infuriated mum who splashed out £25 for her kids to enjoy some time at a soft play centre, only for them to have an even better in IKEA a short while later - free of cost.
Vicki Steele, mum to Ivy Senna, 4, and Jenson, 3, can now see the funny side of the saga and she captured her ‘strong and bewildered’ reaction on film.
Vicki treated her two toddlers to some half term fun at an indoor play area. Doing what parents do everywhere, she decided to pack in another activity and pay a visit to IKEA in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, to pick up some items for her living room.
On arrival at the store, her children’s reaction to the IKEA experience was not what she was expecting. For Ivy and Jensen, the store beat the soft play area hands down. They were thrilled to bits and had the time of their lives in the real-life doll’s house.
The kids were filmed navigating the different departments as they explore, ticking off all the arrows that guide shoppers through the store.
Vicki, who was shopping with husband Richard, 44, humorously described the children’s grandfather, Richard Steele Snr, 67, as a 'big kid' as he encouraged the tots through the adventure playground that was IKEA.
While initially gutted to see her children happier running around IKEA for free after spending £25 for a soft play area, Vicki, a Media Relations Specialist, did admit that it was 'really sweet to see' after she calmed down.
"It gets so expensive over half term," she said, "because even something like soft play is meant to be a relatively cheap thing to do, but it adds up and you find you've spent £25. Then you see them lose their minds in IKEA."
The visit to IKEA was an essential one, squeezed in after the visit to the soft play area. "The kids loved it. We made up a game, basically a treasure hunt, where they had to follow the arrows and at the end find the treasure - which was hot dogs.
"They just ran round, and every time they saw an arrow they screamed the place down, then Ivy was marking it on her little sheet.
"It's lovely to see them play together and do this treasure hunt, with my son shouting through the crowds 'There's another one!'
"Kids are pretty simple creatures when it comes down to it, and I think one trip to IKEA proves it."
Vicki’s toddlers have even taken to calling IKEA 'The Big Blue Shop'.
"There was an arts and crafts stall out the front but they were more interested in going round the shop than doing anything that was actually planned for kids", she explained.
"It just goes to show they were more taken with the shop itself. You see it time and time again when you get them gifts and they'll just play with the box for hours.
Keeping children entertained during half term is a new one on Vicki and her husband Richard, and they are learning fast.
”Trying to find stuff to do over half term has been a real eye-opener for us. We're inexperienced in the realms of half term because this is the first time we've had to do it and it comes as a bit of a shock to the system.
“Plus you don't have wraparound care with half term, so we've found ourselves asking 'What do we do now?'”
Vicki’s experience demonstrates you don’t always have to have great, fancy plans to entertain children.
"You take them to IKEA, give them a big yellow bag and let them run around. Because it's a maze and they were so excited it took us about two hours to get round.
"There's a playpark outside but they only spent about ten minutes on it - after two hours in there they were ready to go home.
"The only counter-productive thing is I then had to go back a couple of days later to get the stuff for the living room."
IKEA were contacted for comment.
