Sometimes I wonder why we even buy toys for the kids at Christmas. Feeling particularly happy with ourselves one Christmas morning a few years back, Duane and I rounded the corner to find the kids in an empty moving box playing pirates -- fancy Disney salon and basketball hoop nowhere to be found on "Ye Olde Pirate Ship". After that, I made one of my famous declarations emphatically stating that for next Christmas we would be visiting U-Haul to find the BEST. PRESENTS. EVER!
Even though it is a little late in the season, there is help. It's the Parents' Choice Holiday Gift Guide put out by a great nonprofit that monitors quality children's media and toys. Their helpful website allows you to search by age, interest and budget making it pretty easy to get some ideas for toys that actually might get played with beyond Christmas morning. Of course, nothing will ever beat an empty box!
Big empty boxes create so much imagination! A big plastic car - the box is the garage!
Posted by: Onna | April 07, 2009 at 04:42 PM
Our kids also love to pretend their big box is a spaceship. Their preschool teacher was the queen of big boxes. She'd go to the loading dock of appliance stores and get huge boxes. We even had a store front for a farmer's market once! You definitely can't beat the open-ended play of a giant cardboard box!
Posted by: elisa | April 08, 2009 at 07:23 AM