Friday 3 January 2014

The LEGO Christmas


The Lion Chi Temple - constructed in 48 hours

This Christmas will go down in the family history books as the LEGO Christmas.

For months now, Littleboy 1 has been carrying round a LEGO catalogue and memorising the names of various sets that he had in his sights. He was very clear about what he wanted for Christmas - the Legends of Chima Lion CHI Temple - and had been telling us for months that, should he receive it from Santa, he intended to build it all in one day.

And he very nearly did - it was finished by Boxing Day evening, despite being about 1000 pieces. In fact, we barely saw the boys over Christmas, so intent were they on completing their new architectural projects. It was brilliant - one morning we lay in bed until 10AM because they decided to get up and do their LEGO rather than bounding into our bed at 7AM demanding breakfast.

Their room is now like a miniature Legoland, full of various creatures, scenes from The Hobbit and lineups of characters looking like a tiny yellow army.

Sometimes it's rather freaky; watching The Return of The Jedi, which as far as we knew they hadn't seen before, they seemed to know all about the various characters and what was going to happen next. "I've seen it on LEGO Star Wars," would be their explanation. Or "It's in my LEGO sticker book."

I do sometimes wonder whether LEGO is slowly taking over the world by stealth? Will we one day see a LEGO President in the White House, and little LEGO representatives of each country at the UN? Perhaps it is a conspiracy by the Danish government, and all that selfie-taking is just to throw us off the scent?

I don' t know, but I'm gradually giving in to the madness after years of wondering what's going to happen to all his deconstructed LEGO we buy (is it recyclable?) and complaining about how expensive it is.  After all, building LEGO is healthier for them than endless computer games or TV, and they MUST be developing their fine motor skills or whatever we're supposed to be doing with our children at this age.

So when I took them to Toys R Us yesterday (cue endless questions about the spelling of said shop's name; Littleboy 2 thought it was called Toys Are Rust) to spend their Christmas money from various relatives, I knew exactly where I was heading.

I steered them straight over to the LEGO and said: "There you go. Why don't you just buy more?" 




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10 comments:

Jay said...

Lego is absolutely timeless, we've had the lot over the years. It'll keep your boys going for a long time yet - careful not to step on the upturned pieces with bare feet, ouch!

Muddling Along said...

Mine have got the Lego bug too - I do worry about the sheer volume that we seem to have around the place but hey, it has to be better than a lot of other things… and at least since i introduced trays to build on fairly well contained

Expat mum said...

I put my foot down when the 10 y/o said he wanted the Ewok Village. Apart from the fact that it's $300, it's huge and once he's built half the stuff he never plays with it. We still got him a fairly large piece, but I'm going to look for books that have things you can build with all the lego bits you've already got.

Anonymous said...

You are lucky that they love building lego. It means that they are focused and engaged and prepared to use their minds, rather than engage in brainless screen time (which is a battle we have daily in our house).

On that cheery note, hope you had a fab christmas x

Almost American said...

This Christmas DD (age 14) complained that we hadn't bought her any Lego!

I did buy Lego MindStorms for the family - but so far only The Husband and The Boy have played with it.

Iota said...

I agree with TalkAboutYork. You should be feeling smug that your boys are involved in creative, hands-on, non-screen activities.

Maybe they'll be the ones building the Lego White House and controlling the Lego President!

Metropolitan Mum said...

A Lego president? Haha.

Was Living Down Under said...

We had a Lego Christmas as well. Until recently it was just my 5 year old girl who's been interested in Lego. So I got her a house that she wanted and we spent the holidays building together. Turns out when I sat down to help her, my other children got interested as well. My oldest though, she's only interested in building what is in her head and inevitably we don't have enough pieces. I'm headed to Craigslist to see what I can get second hand :) Sounds like you had a fun, relaxing holiday. I'd much rather my kids played with Lego than with an iPad!

nappy valley girl said...

Jay - I'm always stepping on it. ALWAYS..

Muddling Along - I tried the trays thing, but they still seem to like spreading it all over the house...

Expat Mum - I have seem those books. I might have to get one for next year...

Talkaboutyork - oh, we have battles over screen time too. And they do love TV. I just don't let them play video games (other than iPad), which they're fairly OK with.

AA - At 14 I definitely wasn't playing with Lego - good for her!

Iota - I know. It is lucky. Not sure they'll be ruling the world though...they watch too much Scooby Doo.

MetMum - there is also the Lego movie about to come out. I bet it'll make millions...''

WLDU - Second hand is a very good idea. Trouble is they always want the new stuff such as Lord of the Rings or stuff like Harry Potter which costs twice as much now they've stopped making it!

Nota Bene said...

I'm so glad Lego survived the digital onslaught...and especially glad your boys are loving building those phenomenal things...you'll be glad/alarmed to know that there's a Lego film coming too!