All Hail Lego!

I can't get to Christmas without having at least one Lego memory.

My first Lego arrived as a Christmas gift from my parents. It was a large, flattish box that rattled loudly when I shook the wrapped package. It was the first gift that I actually could not figure out, since it was in a flat box and it was intriguingly noisy. (Pieces weren't in plastic bags yet then) My curiosity eventually got the better of me and I started trying to see into the wrapper, which only revealed the red and white LEGO logo.

Lego? What in the world was that? That mysterious logo would torment me for three weeks.

I had a set just like this one.

I was to find out only on Christmas Day, which finally led me to open the said box to find a cool picture of a moonbase (it was a Lego Space set). Wow! And then, opening it, I found not a cool moonbase, but hundreds of tiny plastic pieces. No wonder it rattled, it was broken! Rising despair became rabid curiosity when my father showed me the instruction booklet. I was supposed to build the moonbase myself! And, if I wanted, I could actually build other things! Way cool!

That began a love affair with making things with my hands. Aside from my own toys, I played with my sister's Legos (she got the City sets), and mixed and matched bricks to make my own space ships and cars. I've had not only other Lego sets, but models, Erector sets (which I hand-carried home from the US, never mind that it weight nearly as much as my luggage), and video games like Sim City, which play a lot like a software version of Lego.

Needless to say, I've been a fan ever since.

I was sad for a while when Lego seemed to fade from the scene here, but I'm glad they're back! My five-year-old son now enjoys building his own toys (and very well, too, considering he's building sets supposedly for nine-year-olds) and I can't help but feel jealous. They've gotten very creative with those little blocks, to say the least. (My jaw dropped when I saw the Death Star set.)

I mean, just look at the thing!

I still get the need to build once in a while, especially with how exciting looking the new products are. However, with my son already collecting sets at a rapid pace, I wonder if I'll ever get the chance. Maybe I'll have to do it outside of the house, like some kind of plastic, blocky mistress.

Sad, I know. Just goes to show how much of a fan (and a geek) I am.

Images from Lego.com