Christmas in France and LEGO
Giving your children what their heart desires for Christmas and during end of year holiday celebrations is usually given a lot of thought by parents with a balance between what they love and want, what growing children might need and what you can afford at the time.
We are no different and even though we have often packed our bags and headed over to France for the end of the year, we’ve still tried to give our kids what we know they will love on Christmas Day. With children’s toys being slightly different in France, and most books and CDs in our local shops being in French we’ve often decided taking their gifts with us from Australia is the best option.
One year our boys Anthony and Thomas were enthralled with the popular Pirates of the Caribbean films, Jonny Depp and his charismatic character Captain Jack Sparrow and of course his ship, the Black Pearl. And they really wanted the LEGO Pirates Brick Bounty model of a two masted pirate ship complete with sails, sailors, tender and numerous parts which came in substantial sized boxes.
I thought that this year it might be easier to purchase the gifts at Les Quilles à la Vanille toy store in Guingamp or the larger store JouéClub at Langueux, but these stores often stocked a different range and we’d seen before that LEGO in France seemed highly over priced. I also reckoned that the odds of finding two Pirates Brick Bounty models only days before Christmas was pushing our luck a little too far.
So that was that, we were taking the gifts from Australia. Now, how to firstly fit these into our suitcases, and secondly keep them secret? This is the solution I came up with. I purchased two Pirate models from my local Target store, carefully opened the boxes with a knife, took out all the individual bags of LEGO bits and bobs and instruction manuals and hid them in my suitcase amongst my clothes. I then flattened the boxes and packed them also.
Then late one night at the French house just before Christmas when the children were in bed, I reassembled the boxes with sticky tape, put all the bags and manuals back in them and sealed them up. Good as new!
My kids were amazed at how clever I was that I’d found just what they wanted in France (never registering that the box and manuals were written in English) and were very happy little boys.
This was so successful that I did it the following couple of years with both Anthony and Thomas spending part of their French winter holidays LEGO building in peaceful harmony on the thick rug in front of the crackling fire. For me, I’ve enjoyed curling up in front of the fireplace watching them build their models, sipping a glass of wine and thinking myself very clever.
