Wood Toy Wars

Once again I wake up and realize that another year has gone by and it is Christmas.......again.
Don't get me wrong, I love shopping for my kids. I love the game of 'will they really like this? or am I buying it because I like it?' and I love getting things that I know for a fact that my kids will enjoy.
There is just one problem. I want my kids to have wood toys and the rest of my family doesn't get it. Last year, my husband and I got into it because I wanted to buy a wooden toy kitchen for our son. My husband didn't want to spend that much. So I caved and we bought a plastic one. He spent the hours assembling it, snapping all the little plastic bits together, etc. When he was half way through, a place near us advertised a wooden one on sale for the cost of the plastic one. If he hadn't already spent hours working on it, I so would of taken it back.
This year, again, I want to get more wood toys for the kids.
Mostly because I am SICK of PLASTIC!! It breaks, cracks, and just doesn't hold up to my son. I want to throw out all of the plastic food we have and just buy the wooden version. If I had money coming out of my pores I would do it.
The trouble is also my family. I understand hard times, but they seem to think that more is more. Not to be the fussy reciever, but I'm the one stuck with all the crap the rest of the year. The cheap toy register that breaks at the first fight over it.
My husband doesn't help the situation, he just makes jokes about how we just shouldn't have anyone else over. Or that's why he didn't like other kids playing with his stuff cause they broke it all the time.
So, social recluse is the answer here? No thanks, I don't get out often enough as it is.
With this being said, you can now understand my elation at finding decent wood musical instraments for my kids at a discounted price. Yes, wood for the price of plastic. HOORAY!! I don't care if it seems lame, this is something that kids play with. Action figures don't see too much action in my house. They lay around the floor after one wrestling match. Then they are scooted around by my daughter in her adventures in crawling. My cook books see more action than some of these 'wonderful' plastic toys.
::sigh:: I had to get that out. I'm sure most moms agree that they would rather their hard earned money went to something that will last two kids for six months, at least. If anything I'm grateful my kids are February babies. Then I can scoop up all the clearance stuff that I wanted to get them.