When it comes to Christmas, it seems a parent’s work truly is never done.

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After all the hours of choosing presents, shopping and then wrapping them up, on the day itself you'd hope we'd get a little bit of piece when our children start playing with their new toys.

But oh no - there's the packaging. According to a survey of 600 mums and dads conducted by LocalTraders.com, removing all the packaging and putting everything together that needs screwing, unscrewing, building, and of course, adding batteries, can take around 68 minutes.

Bikes, dolls’ houses, instruments and racing games are amongst the most difficult gifts to put together and 94% of parents surveyed blamed excess packaging for increasing the amount of time it took them to get their children’s toys working. Many complained of having to use sharp scissors to free toys from boxes.

One father said, “Toys are practically welded into boxes these days. You need a blow torch to get them out and it takes hours. Then when you finally do free them you realise you don’t have the batteries and the kids have a meltdown when you tell them they can’t play with them.”

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And it’s not just Santa’s elves who are hard at work on Christmas Eve - more than half of the parents surveyed started the mammoth task of toy construction after getting their children to bed on Christmas Eve.

Parents are so fed up with spending Christmas constructing presents that 68% of those polled said they would be willing to pay more for products that were already put together.

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