STEPHEN LEWIS looks at the hottest new toys around: and ponders the cost of Christmas.

LITTLE Abigail Priestman was flipping excitedly through a toy catalogue, drawing up her list for Santa, when she stopped and looked up at her mum, Julie. "Mum, Christmas is great, isn't it?" she said. "Father Christmas just brings anything and it doesn't cost mums and dads a penny."

Julie, a 30-year-old childminder from Acomb, can't help laughing when she relates the story: but it's a laugh tinged with a hint of the desperation all parents feel at this time of year.

"She honestly thinks Christmas is free, because Father Christmas brings everything and doesn't charge," she said.

The truth is each year, a staggering £850 million is spent in Britain on around 180 million Christmas toys.

Already, the Christmas hype is moving into top gear. Switch on the TV when the children's programmes are on and you will be bombarded with coaxing ads for the latest doll, action figure or Thomas The Tank Engine train set. Each of them guaranteed to have your children tugging at your arms and saying: "Mummy, I want that!"

Right on cue, the contenders for this season's 'must-have' toy are jostling for position - and the attention of the present-buying British public - as shops and toy companies prepare for the Christmas spend-fest.

The toy industry's three-day Total Fun event, designed to showcase the latest goodies, kicked off today at Earls Court in London.

Experts are in a frenzy of speculation about what will make it as this year's top-selling Christmas toy.

Will it be Poo-Chi, the electronic, interactive singing pup that looks to be Harrogate-based distributor Tiger Electronics' smash hit follow-up to the phenomenal success of Furby and Son of Furby? Or will it be Poo-Chi's rival Teksta, the electronic pet pooch that talks, eats, laughs and cries - and will start whimpering if you forget to play with him? A more likely number one, say experts, is the new range of Thunderbirds toys, which have been launched to tie in with BBC2's re-showing of the digitally remastered TV series.

The range includes electronic action figures of Thunderbird heroes Scott, Virgil and Alan Tracy, and an all-action techno playset of the Thunderbirds control centre Tracy Island.

Experts say the popularity of Scott and the boys is part of a Seventies revival sweeping the land as children of that era now have kids of their own.

Other big, Seventies-inspired toys this year include saggy old cloth cat Bagpuss, Weebles and the Clangers, the mouse-shaped characters from a blue-cratered planet who first arrived on Earth TV in 1969.

Board games should also do well. Scrabble has been re-launched, and there are spin-off games from TV series, including Big Brother and Walking With Dinosaurs. Biggest of all, though, is the revamped Who Wants To Be A Millionaire Game, which has had an electronic makeover and features Chris Tarrant's voice, the television show's title music, sound effects and flashing lights.

Whether it's any of the above - or the Action Man Skateboard Extreme, Interactive ET, who can learn about planet Earth and be taught to speak English, or the Micro Skate Scooter, which is becoming a UK-wide craze - the effect on your pocket will be the same.

Parents everywhere will be digging deep. For Julie Priestman, Christmas is even more expensive than for most mums and dads. Abigail's birthday falls on Christmas Day - she'll be six this year - meaning she expects a double helping of presents. With little sister Eleanor also expecting Santa to be generous, it makes for an expensive festive season.

"It's a nightmare," Julie sighed. "In my head I've got this figure of £500 that I'm accounting for to cover the whole of Christmas and Abigail's birthday party afterwards. I do dread Christmas. I like it once the shops are shut but until then it's just too commercialised and we all buy into it."

Julie admits she doesn't know how some parents manage. "We're certainly not rich," she said, "but we're not living hand-to-mouth either. Even so, it is very difficult at Christmas. I don't know how parents who are worse off than us manage to cope. "

Julie's sister Joanne Robinson, whose husband Brian tragically died of cancer last year, has been supporting herself and children Daniel, seven, and Lucy, two, on income support and child benefit.

She admits that to cope with Christmas and birthdays (one child's birthday is in November, the other December) she has to start planning and buying presents as early as June.

"Christmas is just too commercialised now," she said. "Kids want everything they see. But in my position, I want the children to have what all the other kids have."

Top of Daniel's Christmas list was a mini-scooter which would set her back about £100. "They're all the rage at the moment," she sighed.

One of the most frustrating things for parents is that almost as soon as they are unwrapped, many of those longed-for, pestered-for presents are forgotten.

A survey last year revealed many parents put the value of unused and unwanted toys gathering dust in their cupboards at up to £500.

Julie admitted her own children were as bad as any. Last year, Abigail had insisted she must have a baby First Step doll, said Julie.

"But she only ever played with it for a fortnight after Christmas. It is in the cupboard now, with all the other dolls."

And that is probably precisely where Virgil, Scott and the boys will be in three months from now.

TOP TOYS THIS CHRISTMAS

1 Thunderbirds. Available from Vivid Imaginations, suitable for children aged three plus.

2 Who Wants to Be A Millionaire electronic game. Available from Tiger Electronics, £34.99 (6+)

3 Teksta. Available from Vivid Imaginations, from around £39.99, (6+)

4 Poo-Chi. Available from Tiger Electronics, £24.99, (6+)

5 Action Man Skateboard Extreme. From Hasbro, £19.99 (6+)

6 Interactive ET. Available from Tiger Electronics, price £34.99 (6+)

7 Scooters. Many brands available, including the Micro Skate Scooter (£99.95) made by Citybug UK (14 upwards)

8 Secret Agent Max Steel. Available from Mattel, from £6.99 to £16.99. (4+)

9 Lego. Two possible Lego hits. MyBot (£49.99) allows children aged four plus to build a robot. Lego Football Champion Challenge (£39.99) lets kids of six upwards build a soccer stadium game.

10 Other 70s toys: A range of Bagpuss toys (£5.99 to £19.99) available from Golden Bear. The same company makes Clangers (£5.99). A variety of Weebles (£2.99 - £24.99) are available from Flair.