As most of you guys know, I have been away for a few weeks visiting family and friends. One of the groups of people that I visited are my friends in Colorado, where I stayed for a night both heading to the east coast and returning here to New Mexico. The guy is my best friend since childhood, and he has a great wife and 2 small children ages 4 and 2 who I truly enjoy spending time with. Most of you also know that I spent a lot of my time away cleaning out family clutter, and this is where I get to the point of the title of this post – “What’s Old Is New Again“. While helping my mom clean out her attic, I came across a bunch of boxes full of my toys from when I was a little kid – everything from GI Joe’s to Legos To Fischer-Price cars, trucks, and airplanes. (I won’t talk about my baseball card collection that was also up there, which obviously needs to be gone through for hidden gems!) Some of the toys headed straight to the landfill because they were beyond help, but many of them were in perfectly fine condition after a quick wipedown with a rag – and that’s when I decided I would pack up a bunch of them and bring them to my favorite “niece & nephew” in Denver. I called their parents to get their permission first, and I even sent them this picture of some of the toys laid out on the carpet, so they could see what was coming to their house:
Almost immediately, my friend replied with “Wow – I remember those toys from when we were kids! Yes, bring them on over!” And so I did – and proceeded to play Santa for a day while giving these kids a giant box of “new to them” toys. They had so much fun taking out all these “new” toys, giving each one a once or twice over, and then proceeding to choose favorites. When we went to dinner, they had to bring a new toy with them. When we went to the movie in the park that night, they had to bring a few with them. This was an exciting day – tons of new toys on a random day that wasn’t their birthday or Christmas! To them, these were new items, while to my friend and I they were a grand memory from 30+ years ago. Solidly built and protected from the elements, they didn’t look too worse for the wear at all, and these kids will get years of entertainment out of all this stuff. And it was all free! My friend even told me he will keep them for when (if) I ever have kids, so hopefully they will get another use again someday down the road. It felt really good to see toys from so long ago being played with as if they had just been taken out of the boxes that morning – it just goes to show you that kids can be VERY happy with almost anything you give them, and they don’t need the latest and greatest new cheaply made toy every other week that will probably break within the year!
I know my mom has a couple of boxes of my old toys and books at her house. This post makes me want to head on over there to get the out – and possibly give them away. Great idea!
You should – it would make some kid’s day for sure!
Years ago my folks gave a box of my Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars to my younger cousin. This was in a Dukes of Hazard carrying case (they were that old). After my son was born a couple of years ago my Aunt gave me back the very same box with most of the cars intact (and a few extras). Now my son gets to play with the very same cars I played with as a kid. These are going through 3 generations now (and I have to admit the 1st generation plays with them too!).
It was an awesome surprise to see them again and my son loves them.
I figure it’s a good excuse to play with them again lol
This is a great idea. There is a store called Toy Exchange in our area. It is run by some nice people and it is filled with all sorts of collectible toys at varying degrees of monetary value from all different eras. Not all toys have to be brand new (just clean). My nephew was very happy with his new-to-him Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.