Whoa, do these people know about and understand your stance here? If someone goes to the trouble to get you a toy at all, I would hope you'd give them the benefit of the doubt before scratching them off the friend list.
And the people hosting the parties would also go to Walmart and buy the 99cent "goodie" bags to hand out to the guest kids. Those bags contained cheap plastic spider rings, plastic whistles which were so malformed that they didn't whistle, etc.
Most of what was given and received would go into the garbage after everyone was home. It's an obscene waste of time, money, and resources. But now it feels like that reality is the common general reality, and that's what scares me.
The gift bags are still a part of the song and dance, but I've seen some shift there, too - one party we were invited to, the family gave plants & seeds as the party favor.
https://www.bruker.com/en/products-and-solutions/elemental-a...
It seems incredibly rude to give such toys. It is like giving coke when someone doesn’t want their kids to drink it.
And yes on incredible waste as sibling comment said.