Is there anything more magical than a toy store during the holidays? The sounds, the sights, the friendly clerks, and the TOYS! Oh, the toys! I remember growing up thinking that I could easily live in our neighborhood toy store, provided I had food and a place to lay my head.
And, what kid wouldn’t? What isn’t to love about a place where you are literally surrounded by every toy imaginable? Even as I got older, I still loved to go to toy stores and play with all the new stuff they didn’t have when I was little, and then when I became a parent, it got even more fun.
When the kids were newborns, we appreciated the toys on a whole new level now that we had little ones to imagine playing with them all, and it made toy shopping all the more magical. Even though they were really young, we would often splurge and buy the set of wooden pots and pans or the toys made by local artists that we thought would be hard to find again. As they got older, I let them help me make the toy buying decisions and would set them at the door and let them run to wherever their hearts took them.
Most of the time, their hearts take them right to the doll bed at the back of the store filled with Corolle dolls, but sometimes they grab the baby of their choice and run to the train table or the play kitchen, and sometimes they surprise us all by playing with the science projects or the stuffed animals during the entire visit. As a parent, I love to see the kind of creativity they inspire in a world that is designed just for them and watching them explore the different parts of their personalities in a safe and fun environment.
The American Specialty Toy Retailing Association {ASTRA} understands how important all these neighborhood toy stores are and they have made it their mission to encourage children to
come and play during Neighborhood Toy Store Day on Saturday, November 10th, 2012. Toy stores nationwide will be joining in the fun with free crafts, science experiments, giveaways, face painting, and more.
We have celebrated for three years now and it's one of our favorite days of the year. In fact, we like to go all out by hopping from store to store throughout the day to see everything the Seattle area has to offer.
Just look at all the fun we've had in past years:
Whether you pop into one store or you hit them all like we do, Neighborhood Toy Store Day is a great way to kick off
the holiday shopping season with your neighbors while helping to support
the local businesses that make our communities great. But, in addition to all that, it's also a ton of fun for the whole family and a tradition we look forward to every year.
I’m looking forward to celebrating all the benefits of shopping local {expert advice, specialty toys not found at larger chain stores, special events, local toys and gifts} and supporting my local toys stores, will you?
If you want to get involved in ASTRA's Neighborhood Toy Store Day next weekend, you can find out what stores near you are participating and join in on all the fun at yourneighborhoodtoystore.org or you can call your local store directly and ask them what they have in store.
Be sure to like The Woohoo Factor on Facebook and on Twitter, which are the official social media outlets for Neighborhood Toy Store Day. You can also follow hashtag #toystoreday, #localtoystore, and #shoplocal for tweets from stores in your area as well as others celebrating.
A big thank you to Team Mom, a division of Child's Play PR who sent me a box of ASTRA-approved toys to play with, which was appreciated, but highly unnecessay considering we were planning on writing about and attending Neighborhood Toy Store Day anyway {shhhhh!}. As always, all opinions are 100% ours.
What fun! I’m going to see what events are happening in DFW