I hope all of you had a Merry Christmas! On Christmas Eve, my husband and I were out shopping, looking for a gift for his grandfather. In the mall, I saw a Lego store, so I stopped and went in. Over the years, Legos have changed a lot! When I was a kid, they didn’t have these small kits that only build one thing, like a car or a helicopter. We just had piles of bricks and we’d build houses and buildings, take them apart and put them together again!

Nostalgia swept through me when I saw those same colorful blocks, the way I remembered them, in the back of the store! They had piles of blocks, separated by color, in bins that were set in the wall! You’d see a bubble of color and you could select the bricks you wanted and pay about fifteen dollars for a whole large cup of blocks. I was walking around, looking at the different kits that contained lots of blocks. I finally said, “We should get this for CJ (our son) for Christmas.” Hubby said, “That’s a good idea.”

I stood there looking at kits, blocks, talking about large base plates to build my house before hubby said…”Can we get out of here now?” I finally settled upon a set of Lego bricks in a large, bright blue plastic tub and a green base plate to set my house.

Anyway, on Christmas day, while everybody was opening presents, laughing, having a good time, I was sitting on the floor, playing with my “son’s” gift. He said, “Mommy, I’m going to knock your house over with this car.” (CJ’d gotten a remote control car for Christmas, actually he’d gotten 2 cars.) I was building a nice big house, but, alas, I ran out of bricks! The kit I’d gotten was only about half full of bricks, so there was room for more bricks in the bucket. When we got home from our Christmas trip, I went to Lego.com and ordered another set of bricks. I want to build, build, build…and CJ can help me if he wants too.

CJ did play with the Legos a little bit on Christmas day. You know, I hear about writers doing collages, coloring, painting, doing all sorts of things to release their creativity. I don’t really do the above-mentioned activities very much…maybe building with Legos will help me release my creativity? It doesn’t hurt to try… 🙂

~Cecelia Dowdy~