On a cold, gray North Shore day, when the house is fast becoming a prison for you and your kids, with the siren song of the TV harder and harder to resist, there is a place you can go, a wonderland of delights for old and young alike, where all is warm and embracing. I speak, of course, of Abt Electronics.

This family-owned company, founded in 1936, has never opened any other locations, instead continually expanding and improving its one super-showroom on Milwaukee Avenue in Glenview. You approach, passing the outdoor furniture and a fire pit merrily ablaze like a stainless steel Yule log, and the automatic door opens in a whisper of welcome. Your children’s eyes widen as they take in the 7,500-gallon saltwater fish tank, originally installed (I think) so you could try out now obsolete video cameras, but kept around because who doesn’t love tropical fish? The giant clinking, clanking audio-kinetic rolling ball machine! The enormous Lite-Brite wall, known as Litezilla, with illuminated pegs the size of bratwursts! The candy store with its endless bounty of sweets! The massive bubble machine and Lego table! On the weekends, fresh (and free) chocolate chip cookies baked in house! And if you are interested in advancing your young ones’ STEM education, there’s even a museum of antiquated electronics, including various things you yourself purchased at full retail price not all that long ago!

We have whiled away many an hour in Abt, my toddler son as delighted with all its pleasures as I am with the selection of competitively priced appliances. Admission is free, but if you figure in what I’ve spent on purchases there — many not planned — it averages out to about $500 a visit. Still a bargain.