Lego

Lego has always been one of those toys that as a family we have always loved.  It is one of those toys that the whole family can get on the floor and play with.  As a child all I had was red and white bricks, then later blue and yellow.  Simple windows and doors and wheels.  When my children where growing up you could get an airport and police stations and for the girls beach houses and cafes. However you still had the instructions which would show you how to make 3-4 different  things with the same bricks, and you could make what you like.

You go into the Lego shops and you see recent films glorified for eternity in little plastic bricks.  I have posted  a Harry Potter he is what he is, you could use the bricks to make other things but Harry Potter looks like Harry Potter complete with scar,  same with Captain Jack. Star wars, pirates of the Caribbean, all immortalized in the little brick.  We love our Lego and really enjoy, yes making up the ships and trains, but please not to many specialized bricks, continue making a good variety of bricks, that help the creative juices in a child flow.  Making the item is just the first step, the child then plays with it firing their imagination creating all sorts of wonderful people having wonderful adventures.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28083135@
N06/6448751047/ 

Lego is not just about Harry, Captain Jack, Luke Sky Walker, and others, yes they play their part, but they all come from the imagination of others.  I went to Kensington, to the doll's house fair, in December and going through St Pancras International Station, I saw a Christmas tree at first, I thought oh a bit boring to symmetrical not how a Christmas tree should be at all, until I got close enough to see. what a wonderful sight stood in the middle of the concourse it was a beautiful Giant Christmas Tree made of lego, it was made of 600,000 lego bricks and stood between 10 and 12 metres high, depending on which paper you read.

I know that a lot of the children, not just the children that saw it went home and got out their Lego boxes and created all sorts of wonderful Christmas scenes and hopefully it was on the list of more than one child.  They couldn't buy a pack to make one but I bet more than one child tried, and that is what Lego is all about.   One of my son's helps in a beaver pack, and those ten minutes at the end of a meeting, while the children sit on their mats to await their parents, are the longest of the whole night.  Last year he went up in the loft and took away 2 boxes of Lego, now silence reigns for those ten minutes and all you can hear is the clatter of bricks and the murmuring of children.  The sad part is when he told me that some of his boys had never played with Lego before.  So go on get a box out of it's hiding place and no matter how old or how busy you are get playing, a bit of escapism is just what we all need, even if it is just for half an hour, I love it.