Saturday Swag-urday

Is back on the scene, crispy and clean.

Can anyone name the song those lyrics are from? Anyone? Anyone?

First person to guess wins, I don't know, something!

Anyway.

Moving right along.

I've decided to start my Christmas shopping.

I know, it's like technically still summer (although 'round these parts it really hasn't been feeling like it).

But, I walked into Michael's the other day and they had all their holly holiday stuff twinkling all over the place already.

IT'S NOT EVEN HALLOWEEN YET!

So, I figured it's safe for me to start reviewing (and giving away!) toys for the holiday season.

But, seriously, don't feel obligated to use my suggestions as X-mas gifts.

By all means, do whatever you like with them.

Just do me one favor.

It's bound to happen that someone will say, "Wow, what an awesome gift idea!". And when they do, be sure to say, "Why thank you. I got the idea from this amazingly intelligent, beyond cool website, run by this super trendy soon to be famous blogger called PBD."

No sweat off your back and it's like the least you could do, right? I mean, I've done all of the hard work to locate and/or review all of the biggest hits on your gift giving list, the least you could do is tell all your peeps about me.

Just sayin'.

So to jump off PBD's Ultimate Bomb Diggity Gift Giving Guide of 2009, let's start with something sure to get your little people's creative juices flowing.

Melissa and Doug hand puppets.

We got ours courtesy* of allchildrensfurniture.com, a member of the CSN family of stores.

They kindly sent the dudes three hand puppets: a knight (which they named Sir Fight Man), a King (named King of the Land), and a princess (affectionately named The Gril, not a typo, that's just how #2 says it).

We set up our homemade puppet theater (which is just some PVC piping fitted together, with fabric fahsioned into makeshift curtains, in front of their handy-dandy-mostly-empty-cause-the-toys-are-on-the-floor toy box. Low budget=high fun!), they made up their story line, and off they went.



See? Three hand puppets and you too can have a theatrical masterpiece like "Knights, Blood, and Mind Control" (but you have to call it something else or #2 is going to sue you for copyright infringement, or punch you in the gut, whichever one is most effective).

King: #2
Knight: #1
Princess: #2
Villain (played by a non puppet): #2

Sound effects: #3
Set design: Dumb Mom
Writter: #1
Director: #2

They had so much fun coming up with their story line and building their set.

They didn't even care that the only audience member (#3) talked through the entire production, threw things at them, and streaked naked across their stage. Twice.

I've definitely been surprised at how much they have enjoyed these.

I honestly didn't know they could work together long enough to do something like this, but they did and it was pretty good (when they weren't laughing hysterically at themselves).

We had a blast. A TV-Gamecube-DS-free-good-old-fashioned blast.

Not really into puppets? Feel free to pop on over to allchildrensfurniture.com and check out all of the other toys and games (not to mention furniture and room decor) they offer. I spent hours (literally) going through all of their options before I settled on the puppets. Possibly that's because I'm an indecisive worry wart, but it could really just be because they have so much to chose from. YOu'll have to check them out to see for yourself!


*In case you were wondering, "courtesy" means free as it is used in this case!