It's just one of those Christmas toys that caught on; Moss Point store can't keep Magic Light Wand in stock

MOSS POINT -- A description doesn't do it justice.

Neither does a video.

A person needs to experience it -- the Magic Light Wand that keeps selling out at Burnham's Drug Store in downtown Moss Point.

It's a Disneyesque Christmas thrill, better than a tiara because it evokes magic.

The wand turns on Christmas tree lights with the sound of a musical trill, the sound ascribed to a magic act.

And Burnham's can't keep them in stock.

At their November open house, the store owner Wendy McKinney and the staff demonstrated it so many times the battery was in jeopardy.

"I was jumping up and down saying, 'Ya'll watch,'" she said. "I bet I did it a hundred times. We were fighting over the wand. All of us (the staff) were wearing pockets so we could carry the wand."

And the customer?

"If they saw it, they wanted one," she said.

They sold out in an hour.

Where did it come from?

A friend of McKinney's, a long-time sales rep, was promoting it for a company out of Memphis.

McKinney, who does the shopping for the gift section of the store, said she was leery at first.

"I was iffy," McKinney said. "I said maybe.

"She sent me one. We tried it and we said, 'We need a case of these,'" McKinney said.

McKinney is a pharmacist and co-owner of the long-time Moss Point business that has branches in Vancleave, Lucedale, Gautier and Escatawpa. But this wand never made it to the gift shops at the other stores. It sells out at the main branch.

McKinney and her business-partner and husband John decided to get a case, thinking even if they didn't sell, the wands would be fun to give to the grandchildren.

So back to the open house. The case went in an hour at $24.95 a wand.

The second case was mostly pre-sold and went in three days.

"I was on the phone with the rep at open house telling her, 'I've got to have another case ASAP," McKinney said.

Other cases came. But she said last week she was told they sold out, even in Memphis.

She sold the last three on Friday, but begging over the weekend, got two more cases on Monday.

So what is it?

Maybe it's one of those toys that just catches on, like dangling white Christmas lights that look like ice cycles on your house or a hover board or (decades ago) Cabbage Patch dolls.

This toy has a circuit that the lights plug into and a switch in the wand that activates the lights.

People say they're buying the wands for the kids, McKinney says. But she wonders.

Her 7-year-old grandson wasn't as impressed.

"It's a button," he said. "You're pushing a button."

The 4-year-old liked it and wanted to do it over and over.

McKinney thinks the appeal is really deep down within the adult who buys it. It touches something.

"It's one of those things that helps bring out the kid in you for Christmas," she ventured.

"Christmas is about giving, but it's also about fun," she said. "If you can't bring the kid out at Christmas, then the fun's gone."

And beside that, she said, "They're precious."

She said her 82-year-old dad wanted one. At first he indicated he wanted to give it away, but she's heard he kept it and has worn out the battery already.

So on Friday, with more on the way, they were down to the demo at Burnham's.

"That one belongs to me," McKinney said.

Demonstrating magic

Store clerk Theresa Pintea explained the appeal.

"It's magical, but it's also the wonder," she said. She was in the process of giving a demonstration to a customer while she talked with the Sun Herald.

"People want to know, 'How did you do that?' The magic and the wonder coincide with the belief in Santa Clause," she said. "And you know it's going to amaze your children and you want to see their reaction.

"But I have so much fun with it myself," she said. "Some adults may be buying it for themselves."

Then she switches to the sales pitch for the practical grown up in all of us: "You can use it for other things around the house. You can plug anything into it, and it will turn them on and off. You can actually use it year 'round."

This story was originally published December 7, 2015 at 7:50 PM with the headline "It's just one of those Christmas toys that caught on; Moss Point store can't keep Magic Light Wand in stock ."