Crack open the Quality Street, pull on the cosy socks and stake out your spot on the couch: it's Toy Show night!
The most wonderful, magical and unpredictable night of the year returns with an homage to nostalgia, belonging and home, as the Toy Show takes the Wizard of Oz as its theme for 2022.
The show's majestic set was unveiled to media at yesterday's press event, and we're counting down the seconds to that now-mandatory opening number.
As always, the Toy Show will try to capture more than just what's on kids' Christmas lists for Santa, offering a portrait of Ireland in 2022. For many, that will mean challenges brought on by the cost-of-living crisis, the war in Ukraine and more.
"With that in mind, we said we go back to basics", Ryan said. "So the Wizard of Oz is pure Christmas to me. It's that lovely dream of no place like home. It's simplicity, it's nostalgia, it's colourful, it's romantic in its ideals.
"There's not many TV shows left where people will put their phone down for a couple of hours. So, we're going to follow the yellow brick road all the way home."
Our energetic host promises a "Technicolour" spectacle on the night, adding, "It's like a rainbow vomited on you." "It feels like maybe Ireland in the world is a bit Kansas at the moment, and we're Oz."
As for what character the Toy Man will inhabit on the night, he kept it firmly under wraps yesterday, but said it had gone through a few iterations.
"Funny enough, there was one character I was going to be for ages, and then I said, I'm not so sure about him. I said, can I be that one? They said, 'We wanted you to be this one originally'. I said, 'ohhhh', because I'm not very bright, you see."
Toy Show night is arguably Ryan's biggest night of the year, but he added that it isn't the only night he gets to be the Toy Man. That, he said, is a role he gets to play every day.
"When you guys aren't here and the Toy Show isn't on, I'm walking around Clifden or Dublin or wherever, and you're the Toy Man to children, all year round. It is one of the greatest, weirdest gifts I've ever been given."
On a trip to St. Finian's National School in Finglas this week, he said he saw the Toy Man effect in action: "I looked through the window, and I'd forgotten the magic of the Toy Show and the Toy Man because jaws dropped, mouths were grabbed, eyes came out.
"They wanted to know three things in each class I went to. One, what age are you? Two, what are you doing in our school? And three, do you like Fanta?"
Unpredictability, like with his now-infamous Fanta incident in 2020, is arguably what makes the show extra, extra special.
"The children, yes, you can say hello to them and meet them up. But they're six, they're live, they're manic, they've got jellies coming out their ears and I don't know what's coming next. It is cutting the brakes in the car and rolling down a very long hill.
"It's terrifying. Why do I do this?" he added, laughing.
What's it like corralling a hoard of sugar-crazed kids on Toy Show night? Manic, and intentionally so, if you ask the equally buzzy host. "If you can imagine a packet of Skittles come to life and then turning into ping pong balls, that's pretty much what you got. And the parents are behind them kind of going, what have they done to my children?
His pre-show ritual is to send the adults to one end of the room and deliver a fiery pep talk to the sweets-fuelled kids. "Then the next day they scrape the child off and I say to those parents, you're welcome."
"I want parents to be driven demented tomorrow night. I want them to hate me so much because anytime I get this message to kids, "eat everything, you're in charge, you're the boss", it's like putting this little emotional grenade into a room and then walking away.
He does it, though, because he's "an ally to the kids". "They can look at me and go, you're a weird manchild. I become nine [while on the Toy Show]. It's the weirdest thing."
The Toy Show has always been about the kids. It's especially for the ones who are a little "off the beaten track".
He has a soft spot for those who are "just a little bit, sometimes daft, who don't give a damn that they're on TV, who are utterly unimpressed by me. So basically, me as a child".
The Toy Show is also a place for the ones who are different from the rest, he said. "It's not the kid who constantly on the phone looking for likes or followers. It might be the child who doesn't look like everyone else. They're my favourite because they're more representative of the real world rather than something too amazing."
It will reflect the challenges faced by many children in Ireland today: "The show is peppered with stories and children and moments that reflect where we are. You will see a flavour of Ukraine in the show tomorrow. You will see a flavour of people who have got a bad throw of the dice in life."
"The thing about childhood is, it shouldn't be ruined or interrupted by war. It's so horrible. And don't forget, all the males in Ukraine, are still in Ukraine, so there's a lot of children with no dads and uncles and grandfathers because they're stuck in a country.
They don't want to be here, a lot of them. They want to go home. But they're children and the Toy Show doesn't know borders or boundaries and that's why they will be welcomed into our loving arms just like any child, because it doesn't matter where you're from, what you look like, this is your family too."
The Late Late Toy Show airs on Friday, November 25th on RTÉ One at 9:35pm.
