No matter how carefully you plan, there's almost always a point on Christmas morning when little Jared's shiny new toy won't work because you forget the batteries or some other implementation disaster. As a card-carrying geek, I'm all for giving the kids tech presents, but after a few minor incidents of this kind over Christmas, I've made a few notes on what to do better next time around.

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Elmo Live (a super-robotic version of the infamous Tickle Me Elmo) has received masses of publicity and is expected to be a big Christmas seller. Digital Journal TV showed true hacking instinct by grabbing the all-singing, all-dancing Muppet and ripping his skin off to show the workings underneath; check it out in the video above. It's surely only a matter of time before people come up with more elaborate hacks to repurpose Elmo.(Warning: your kids might not like this much.) Digital Journal [via Tough Pigs]

The gang at IKEA Hacker have come up with another esoteric tech hack, this time using a Söt Barnslig soft toy to create a novelty USB drive. You could easily adapt this plan for other soft toys, though you might have to hunt around to get one for less than 95 cents.

The folks over at the Unclutterer blog are on a war against toy clutter in the house that inevitably builds up with toddlers. They offer a few "duh!" alternative activities to commercial toys, like matching the socks in a freshly-done load of laundry, plus this great suggestion for a two-year-old:

Man, does she love to "paint" the sidewalk or fence with a paintbrush and small bucket of water. She can easily spend a half an hour painting and when she is done there is absolutely no mess to clean up.

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