They say that families with children are split between being either a Playmobil or a Lego family. In the early years, we were lovers of Duplo, then strayed away to the other side; my girls have always been rather ‘immediate play’ children and ready made pieces seemed to suit their style better. Then a couple of Christmases back we got some gorgeous sets from Santa, which fired a straight SIX WEEKS of Lego play. The games started off centred around the shops we had bought, moved on to floor plan style games that involved huge amounts of role play and developed into model building and technical moving parts quite autonomously. We’ve even used Lego as the basis for an art project.
This year I went shopping for Lego again; finding enough cheap Lego to furnish the creative desires of 4 (and now 5!) children isn’t easy, though as a friend told me she has just realised she has now spent a 5 figure sum on Lego for herself (ahem, her children!) and her hoards of godchildren, I think I should be grateful we took our time discovering it!
Lego is still a huge draw for the younger girls and Fran, at nearly 14, still considers a Lego set at Xmas her guilty pleasure 😆 This year she got the lighthouse, a Creator set that makes several models and spent several happy hours on Boxing Day constructing it as a bit of down time from panto performances. Amelie and Josie shared the Victorian post Office, (cue not only loads of rebuilding of last years Victorian shops but also a huge long game!) and Xmas, once again was taken over by Lego. It has to be said though that it is only with the greatest of difficulty that I manage to avoid being a total control freak over the whole thing. I want my Lego filed and categorized and permanently perfectly built. My children, having failed to inherit most of my OCD traits, are perfectly happy with models that look a little like the Potter cottage in the final Harry Potter and huge tubs of jumbled up Lego, with bits of food and sawdust mixed in for good measure. Sometimes I don’t really know where I got them from 😆
One model that is I think going to last as a permanent model is the VW Camper, which also arrived at Christmas time. It has to be the most beautiful creation I have ever seen. I’m no huge fan of the vans themselves (I like my camping full of modern convenience or, more recently, involving me staying in a cottage while the children camp!) but this is just fantastic. I never fail to be impressed by the sheer obsessive invention of the Lego creators. I think it appeals to the Fimo modeller in me; I just love seeing the detail people add to things and the clever uses of basic bricks to make familiar objects.
While I was in hospital having Benedict, the girls were lucky enough to be sent the Lego Grand Emporium to review for free. I was sorry to miss the building of this (I’m actually tempted to by the pet shop for myself so I can make something as big and gorgeous!) because it is one of the most amazing Lego sets I have ever seen. It stands over 30cm tall and is roughly the size of an A4 piece of paper in ‘floor plan’. Each layer, of which there are three, comes apart so they can be played with individually and the level of detail is incredible. There are plenty of people and pieces of merchandise to build into game play and naturally the girls have immediately involved various pirates, witches and other mini-figures into the game play. As a toy, this is divine, but I’m not going to be letting it get broken up any time soon. I think it will look just lovely on the dresser 😆
Possibly my favourite thing about this set though was my children having a very serious conversation about whether it was okay to send the mini-figures to the emporium and would it mean that trade was down at the village post-office, toy shop and bakery that we already have. it’s good to see I have trained them well in supporting small business!!!!
Disclosure: We were sent the Lego Grand Emporium to review for free in return for this blog post. The other sets were bought by us and all opinions are genuine and my own and long overdue a blog post anyway!
I think this means Charlie might really be yours – all his are permanently made up and arranged nicely on top of his Ikea units! I wanted to get him the camper van for Xmas but had already blown my budget by the time I saw it! Love the Grand Emporium too – maybe he will get both this year.
Wow. That Lego Grand Emporium is amazing. I’m reading this with my soon-to-be-five year old on my knee and she’s asked if we can have it! 😉 Sadly not, but I might start saving…
You would hate us then. The set gets built, then oooh, about 5 minutes later, it is being made into something else not specified on the instructions, and will never even vaguely ressemble what its meant to be ever again.
We also seem to be a simultaneous playmobil/lego family. I thought when Max started with Lego that would be it for Playmobil, but no, it was on his Christmas list and somehow he manages to mix the two up fairly successfully.
We adore Lego and have rather a lot of it. We’re big random boxes of parts people, not finished models according to instructions, too. But we have recently, reluctantly (I actually cried) decided to stop buying Lego due to their hostile anti-girl marketing. Leaving girls out totally was a deliberate marketing decision in about 2000 when they were in serious financial trouble, but the new Lego Girls stuff is, well, new, and much nastier than just leaving them out.
Luckily, the Lego and feminist blogosphere is pretty loud about it, so hopefully I can buy it again next Christmas. I reeeeeeeeally want to.
I’m quite intrigued by the ‘friends’ thing. There was ‘Ello’ once before which totally unimpressed by girls and Belleville (?) impressed them no more than the girls playmobil. I can see there is a market though, because as a toy seller and a mother of daughters I am forced to admit that some things do just tick the boxes for some girls. I’ve got some of their new girl stuff coming and I’m curious as to what my lot will think of it.
But… Is it really worse than all the technic being cars and lorries and all the nijago and so on, which is heavily geared towards the fighting element of some boy natures? I honestly don’t know.
I think friends would have appealed to mine more than belville did and they’ve often been uninspired by some of the more boy aimed Lego. And generic, neither one nor the other toys seem fairly hard to achieve in design and more importantly for companies, sell. We’ve become like that I guess. It may change.
I can never decide about gendered toys really. I guess bringing up a boy might alter what I think now.
It’s not the toys themselves (there are already mindstorm robots with lipstick fingers) but the marketing.
Not on my phone now.
It’s not the products themselves, but the marketing. And it’s not just Lego; it has got massively more gender-divisive everywhere even in the short time since my eldest was born in 2004. For example, Lego Club has split into Lego Club Magazine and Lego Club Girls Magazine. The latter has far reduced building instructions and the former has no girl input at all – no girl photos, no girl letters to the editor. In the 1980s they showed girls building with generic sets or Teknik in their advertising – not a lot, but some – and they eliminated that on purpose in about 2000 because they wanted to boost their boy customer base. They are part of the “pinkification” problem and they are deliberately choosing to marginalise girls and alienate boys from them.
If it were just Lego, it would probably hardly register. But it’s everyone, everywhere, and I think it’s a problem. I just find it more of a problem with Lego because I really, really love their stuff and I want to buy it. Not least because teaming the Friends up with the Mindstorms in the attic would be really awesome. That lipstick-fingered robot is so cool.
Am waiting for mine to get an interest in either. They just dont do the sit-down-and-concentrate-for- long-enough-to-build-anything-worthwhile bit. They are 6, 4 & 18months so maybe I just need a bit more patience but I LOVE all that stuff. Am also obsessive about getting it right so will have to learn some control there though
Sam and I love the lego buildings, especially the pet shop. The one thing that worries me though it that there is only 1 loo for the whole street and one bed! The poor firemen have to go next door to use the facilities! Not easy to do when the street is being attacked by zombies or roman soldiers as so often happens!
For sure I will NOT be showing this post to Benedict!! He is one Lego mad eight year old and currently has a three tiered cupboard ( made by himself) full of the stuff!!! Sets never remain as sets for long as his imagination takes over and he cobbles together all sorts of complex models.
The VW camper van is totally sweet!
Lucky lucky you and the girls:-)
San x
oops…. and not your forgetting your own baby Benedict when he’s old enough to play and not eat the stuff!
You. Have. The. Campervan.
I have just drooled on my keyboard…!
Lol! Oh we so do. It houses a large number of hippy smurfs, currently.