Santa Claus and saying goodbye

That's peter. Isn't he darling? And Santa of course. Why do I have a picture of Santa in a late February blog? Quite honestly because when it was time to write about Santa I was getting home late with gift-wrap worn hands and crashing into bed only to wake with a gasp the next morning and start the cycle over. Now, in late February, I find that writing my blog is a great means of avoiding all of the orders that should be written. So I search through my photos and find my next assignment, and here nestled between Valentines day and Easter, is my Santa blog. I chose a picture that had Peter in it because the ones I had of Charlotte, Peter's sister were not quite as good. Peter, Charlotte, and their new brother Calvin whom they adopted from China in the fall of 2008 just moved to Eugene. Their mom and dad, Jenny and John relocated for work related reasons. It always makes me sad to lose a great family from our community. I feel sometimes like we're building a puzzle here, but the pieces are made of clay rather than cardboard, so there is some room for bending and melding to each other, and when a piece is removed, it takes with it a little of us stuck to the sides, and leaves a little of it behind with the rest of us. I know it makes our community richer to have so much ebb and flow, but I do hate to see the good ones go. The Fords are a good family, thoughtful, active contributors to their community. We'll miss them.
The other side of the picture of course, is Santa. Our Santa's helper is none other than my husband Don. He is forever going on about how dreadful his beard is. How he doesn't look as good as this Santa or that Santa. I tell you though, when a child walks up to see Santa, they are not analyzing the quality of his beard. They are completely drawn into the sincerity in his eyes. Don is a sincere Santa. He takes extra measures to make them feel comfortable and unafraid, he gets down from the chair and plays with them at the train table, and when he asks them what they would like to have for Christmas, it is obvious that he really cares about the answer. As they leave he gives each child a task to do on Christmas eve, and whether it is leaving carrots out for the reindeer, or cookies and milk for him, they all walk a little taller just for having been asked. We've done Santa for five years at the store now, and the experiences are priceless. From the fill in Santa who came with his beard on upside down, to the child who insisted that he "didn't want that big red guy to come in his house!" Every year we groan and wonder if we really want to do this again, every year in the middle of the season, Don is sure he does not, and uncertain as to how I roped him into it, and every year after it is over, it has the glow of an unwrapped Christmas tree. Balls are broken, tinsel hangs askance, but the lights are on, the appetites are sated, the work is done, and the magic remains. Happy memories, snapshots, big sighs, and a determination to enjoy the fruit of ones labors. And the children, my Lord, the children! There are many that if they were not accompanied by their parents I would not recognize. Rarely do I get to see them all spit polished and shined. Usually, I get them at 2:00 in the afternoon with rings of sweat and dust from the dragon park on their hot little necks, ice cream from Serendipity's running down their chins, Saturday bed head, and grass stains on their knees. Santa is another story. They come draped in velvet and bows, red and black plaids, button down shirts and mini Stetson's. Santa gets the Sunday best. And they glow! They know how darling they look, and that they are there on an important mission.
Well now, Easter is on it's way, and here I sit all prepped for Christmas. Before I get ahead of myself, I should put this blog away. It just would not do to have me excited to see the plush reps plop open their Christmas catalogs next month. There, that's better, I'm gagging just a little bit already.

barbie, the one and only

As ASTRA members every year we get to do something that is cooler than cool. We get to have a party at the FAO Schwarz in New York City after hours. Those marvelous tin soldiers are there to greet us and take our coats. We are served and catered to, wined and dined, there is music and dancing. There are no screaming selfish children to interfere with our play time. We get first dibs on the slot car track. We get to have puppets made in our likeness. We get to paint our own pottery, design our own hot wheels, and we get to do it all with a glass of wine in one hand. For me every year the highlight is not the latest educational toy, or the hippest piece of urban art for babies on the bleeding edge of cool. For me the magic is with Barbie.The old girl is fifty this year, aging right alongside the rest of the baby boomers. I understand, as a strong modern woman I am supposed to look at her as the ultimate objectification of woman. Worse yet, of everything a woman can never hope to be. The carrot on a stick that leads our daughters to hate their flat chests and brunette hair, to binge and purge and go the way of the Karen Carpenter. But truly, I think she is magnificent. Maybe it's that I never once for a moment thought that I would be anything like Barbie. I played with fisher price little people and never expected to lose my arms and legs, I played with smurfs and growing up to be blue was a thought I never entertained, I played with Weebles and well, let's not go there. In the same way I played with Barbie and never expected to have size XX breasts with a 12 inch waist, or whatever they have figured out the measurement would be "if Barbie were a real woman". Now, my experience with Barbie was different from most girls. She came into my life when I was in the fifth grade. My family had to move in with my grandparents, and my Aunt Mary had a collection of Barbies from the 60's. These dolls had the zebra print swim suits, and leopard shoes and hand bags. They looked like Jackie O and Audrey Hepburn and every strong gracious female figure you could imagine. And I was older. Perhaps too old to play with dolls, but she was so compelling, and I did have three younger siblings to provide me with a cover. We spent hour after hour, afternoon upon afternoon taking our Barbies to the disco, and to the mall. Building apartments out of apple crates and bathroom towels, shoe box beds and stools made from cans of green beans draped with handkerchief's. We were in our own little world, and it had nothing to do with self loathing. It had to do with creativity and self expression. With growing up and trying on some of those grown up roles without having to really own them. (Ken and Barbie were often found naked in the shoe box together) Feeling our budding sexuality and our sense of what our lives might look like in ten years when we would be free to make our own choices, and drive our convertible to the disco and hang out at the mall, and break up with friends because they are dating our guy behind our back. All of these things, these games we enacted were so crucial to our development that I love Barbie for her beauty and for the service that she provided to me and to all of my little sisters. Barbie looks different now. I personally feel that she is a shadow of what she once was. All that pink and glitter, and much less in the way of class and poise. Her eyes are bigger, and more wide set. Her nose is rounded rather than pointed at the end. Her face is longer, and her lips fuller. I stood and analyzed and tried to give it a positive spin. "Maybe she is a better representation of our multi-cultural world" I thought. But really, I think that the Bratz have been so successful that Mattel has morphed Barbie and made her just a little bratty, which is a shame because a lady like Barbie should never be a brat. Even with these changes and what I feel is a general watering down of Barbie the iconic, I am certain that all over this country there are little girls, and some not so little girls, finding themselves through a 12 inch poseable doll. I am equally certain that the image of the doll is molded and shaped by the child as much as the child's self image is shaped by her play with the doll, and that she has no expectation or even desire to look like Barbie.

New York Toy Fair 2009!!

I wasn't sure what to expect at the International Toy fair in New York this year. It has been a rough year on everyone in seemingly every industry, but I think it seems particularly hard in the toy industry because toys are supposed to be well, fun. Watching toy stores go out of business, seeing some of our good vendors pull out of the U.S. and having to spend so much time and energy attaining certificates of compliance from people we have come to think of as our friends has been hard for many of us. Knowing the kind of money our vendors have had to spend and the effort and time they have had to put into compliance, it's hard to ask "So, do you have COC's on all of this?" We have built relationships with these companies based on trust. We have taken great pride in hand picking the safest best quality items to set us apart from our competition. These, our manufacturers have made that possible. But it's a question we have had to ask. We are all rowing this boat of liability together.I thought there would be a dark cloud hanging over toy fair. I thought that we would hear over and over again, "Well, with the economy....." "The costs we have incurred this year have made it hard to...." I have found instead a marketplace full of Play. Every isle is full of people with new creative ideas. Yes, there is a finger on the pulse of the American pocketbook. Yes, every vendor has increased it's number of SKU's under $20. Yes, prices on things have gone up substantially due to testing and shipping and raw materials increases, but there is an overall sense of optimism, a sense that we are needed in this world that somehow we will prevail and what doesn't kill us will indeed make us stronger. That toys really are fun. Mini celebrations of our inventive creative character. A symbol of human perseverance. Toy fair so far, has been a blast. An enthusiastic joy filled playing with toys blast. I'll keep you posted with what I've chosen to bring home. Today, I was focused on vinyl art. I ordered little vinyl Ugly Dolls. I'm looking at several other lines. I have teenagers these days and I want my own kids to think that hopscotch is the bees knees more than ever. With any luck, keeping up with their interests will allow your children to find that we are relevant to them as the years pass as well. It's a sad day when all they want is music and clothes. We'll keep them playing as long as possible.

Nudity and button eyes

My family went the movie theater this evening to see Coraline. My eldest son Devon is a student at the Media Arts and Communications Academy here in McMinnville, and one of his classes had recently toured the studio in Portland where it was produced. My husband is a long time fan of Neil Gaiman's graphic novels, and the kids and I have read the book out loud a couple of times and individually as well.
It (the book) is a work of art. It crawls into your psyche, and you don't know exactly how it got there. Maybe it's the skittering of fingernails across the floor in the middle of the night, maybe it's the rats, or the button eyes, or the impostor world where nothing is what it seems. Like a colorful molten ganasche poured over a putrid moldering cake. Delicious.
Before we went I pulled up some reviews on line and sat there with my kiddo's reading them. "Not a kids production" the reviewer shouted. "Pastie tassles! ....Nudity!" We were all amazed at how much of this we had to wade through before we could get to a review based on the merit of the film production. Was it good? Was it true to the book? What mediums did they use to tell the story? These are the things that interested us.
My children are 11, 13, and 17. Older. I would not recommend this movie to a child younger than 8 unless they had a particularly sophisticated understanding of the difference between reality and fantasy and were able to get good and scared and still sleep at night. The reason I would not recommend this film to some tenderhearted young thing has nothing to do with pasties. It has to do with the fact that the mother has button eyes! She wants to give Coraline button eyes! This is made really clear in every trailer. Knowing this, I just don't understand the trouble with nudity. I'd rather my child see full frontal nudity than a scene where someone is being demeaned, or used, or I'll stop there because I know this topic has been blah, blah, blogged to death. Just my .02 as we ran up upon it tonight. We did all go in spite of the warnings. Coraline was great. This from a book loving family who LOVED the book. Film is wonderful, but it is sorely limited, mainly because a book takes many hours to unfold and a movie only gets a couple. So, some of the suspense was missing. The movie wasn't nearly as creepy as the book. There was a geriatric overweight claymation bare midriff frenzy in the theater scene, but that won't have the kids losing sleep. It is creepy though. Heebie-jeebies creepy. Button eyes creepy, and as fantastic as a parallel existence.

I was standing in the kitchen yesterday talking to my son Rowan about an upcoming Princess and Knight themed birthday party, and he asked "Mom, why is it that girls only want to be the princess, they don't want to be the Queen, and boys want to be the king, or the knight, but they don't want to be the prince?" I'll spare you the litany that went through my mind as the queen of the house finished up the dishes while the princess read a novel on her bed.... Thought it was an interesting question though. Are girls really hard wired to value youth and beauty over power and stewardship? Is it the romance that compels them? What about those boys? The Prince always gets the girl, he fights the dragon, he is handsome and noble, and maybe just a little too good? Is it the dancing and kissing? Knights rescue damsels in distress, and get kissed. But they don't dance. Must be the dancing....

When we moved into the new hopscotch space a year ago we began offering birthday parties. Over the last year we have hosted dinosaur parties, monkey parties, tea parties, fairy parties, princess parties, knight parties, horse parties. We try to keep the parties at around eight children so that we are able to do more with them in the way of craft projects, games etc. This is EXTREMELY hard for parents to do I am finding. There is so much pressure on kids today to invite everyone, and to invite everyone's siblings. While I strongly believe that all inclusive should be the way of the world, must it really be the way of the pre-school? Aren't we all getting a watered down experience if we have to bring everyone along? Aren't the best times in life shared with just a few good friends? One mother told me that she wanted to have an all girls party for her daughter and there was a mother at her school who cornered her and was very angry that boys were being excluded. She was near tears by the time the woman finished telling her how hurt the child's feelings were, and he wasn't the only one who felt this way she said. I know mine is not a popular view, but I say these kids need to toughen up. Every child can not be invited to every event, and the child holding the event should be able to invite only who they want to have in attendance. That is what makes birthday parties special. If every Saturday is packed out with a couple of birthday parties, they become obligations rather than celebrations. Granted, obligations with cake and goodie bags, but with our children's time scheduled as tightly as it is these days, another thing on the calendar is just another thing on the calendar. Of course, my business depends on having many party guests on their way to the party. Particularly so close after Christmas and in a down year, the only reason most of us are buying toys is because of a party that we have to go to. Still I feel safe in the knowledge that I am not going to single handedly convince the rampantly inclusive that our children can take it. They can take being excluded. Really, what our kids seem to need most these days is to be reminded that the world does not revolve around them. If they get left home, it is not the end of the world. It is no big deal. Next time, they will be invited, and they will be invited because they are really wanted, not out of a sense of obligation. How special will that be?

Handmade Toy Alliance

It's all over the news! There has been a stay of implementation on the "SAFE TOY LAW", known to us toy folks as the dread CPSIA. Understandably, with this kind of headline, my customers feel well, a little less safe. First of all, let me state that I would feed my children any toy on my shelf without fear of poisoning them. In all seriousness though, all of our larger manufacturers, Corolle, Melissa and Doug, Ganz, Plan, Toysmith, Schylling, Manhattan, Learning Curve, International Playthings, and on and on, are already compliant.
Secondly, I think we need more than just a stay of implementation. It is my fear that the CPSC is just giving the industry a year to figure out how to comply with the law the way it is written. It's vitally important to amend the content of this law before it is implemented. The tea set in the picture is hand crocheted by Tammy. She crochets while she waits for her husband to finish his chemotherapy. She crochets tea sets,cookies,cakes, tool belts, you name it. The way the law is written now, I could no longer legally sell Tammy's products. They are made from 100% cotton yarn. They are produced in the US. They are well within the limits for lead (the very environment has some lead in it so I won't say lead free, but practically) They are Phthalate free (phthalates are used in plastics to make them more malleable...not in cotton). They are hand made here in my own town. They are some of the coolest most unique items in the store and yet, they would be illegal for me to sell.
Why? Because Tammy can't afford the $300- $4,000 per batch for testing. And,I dare say, you don't want to pay her $300 for a tea set. The way the law is currently written if every strand of yarn she puts into her product has been tested free of lead and phthalates, she still has to test the finished tea sets. There are also no exemptions on testing for materials that don't ever contain lead or phthalates. Unpainted wood, cotton, wool, and other organic materials.
We need standards and requirements. That of course was borne out by the recalls of 2007. We just need to write a law that makes sense, and does not put our small manufacturers out of business. The big guys like Mattel and Hasbro will have no problem meeting these requirements. One test over a batch of a million Bratz dolls only marginally impacts the cost to manufacture each doll. They also have the advantage that the majority of testing labs are in China where they manufacture. The ironic thing is that it was the large manufacturers who had quality control issues in the first place, and as a punishment we are going to put their domestic and European competitors out of business.
There are several European manufacturers, most notably Selecta, that have decided that the US and this law are not worth the trouble, and they will be ceasing shipments to the states. These are great companies with decades of experience selling toys that meet the highest standards in the world, but they can't justify the costs of doing business with us anymore. *sigh*, I call, I fax, I e-mail, I write, and there are thousands of us the handmade toy alliance. It is now time to get to work on influencing amendments to this over-reaching and faulty piece of legislation. We are worried about our cottage industries, our U.S. craftspeople. We don't want to reduce the number of quality toys our children have available to them. We love the folks who are making them. They love making toys for our children. We need to let them keep doing that.

Lollipop. Lollipop, Oh Lolly!

We finally got our first shipment of candy in the toy store towards the end of December. Most of it arrived just before the big snow hit. We bought it through a local lady who used to have a candy store here in town and now wants to do some distributing for the companies she became familiar with. She brought over three gumball machines, one of which is about five feet tall. So cool. She can't find the keys to it though, and the gumballs in it are about as hard as the jawbreakers in the other machine with no way of getting them out to replace them with fresh gumballs (except quarters of course, but I'm afraid we do not have the keys to empty the coin drop either). A little bit of a tease. They look spectacular, one inch spheres of color promising sweet fruity pleasure, but alas, we have out of order signs on them as of yet.
If you put the lollipops we got in on a scale, they would probably weigh about as much as I do...or about as much as I did before the candy counter was stocked ;-) I love to look at them arranged on the counter. I have stuck them down in clear glass vases of what looks like sugar, but is actually salt (no caking issues, and easier clean up if anyone ever knocks it over). Vase after vase of immediate gratification on a stick. We have bagged candies of course, gummies, chocolates, licorice, old fashioned Kits, Sugar Daddy's, Licorice Pipes, Wax lips, etc. But it's the bright lollie's and eye popping colors of those gumballs that really makes my heart happy. That's the sex appeal I was looking for. Whimsy, promise, sublime succulence. True, I do feel a little like a crack peddler every time I hear a little voice beg, plead, and cajole a parent for a sweet little something. I know there is probably a special place in hell for people like me. But I'm choosing to believe that what I'm really doing is creating mythical memories of a place of joy and fantasy. The child's wonderland where everything you ever wanted was right there for the taking...until Mommy said "No!"