Classic Toys from a Madman's Youth: Advent 2019 Day 18

Honestly, you can't do any look at classic toys without including the one that is my focus for today's Advent. In fact, what I am going to talk about isn't even a toy per se. But it's uses by kids are the stuff dreams are made of. I'm talking about cardboard!

Parents- you know the scenario. You spend hours upon hours of planning. Your little one has told you what they want for Christmas. Then you scour the internet for where to get it. You either order it or pick it up in person. Then you place the gift in a large container, wrap it up and place it under the tree. Then Christmas comes. Your little one destroys the paper, pulls out the gift of their dreams! Your child plays with the toy for a while and then BOOM! It happens!

They ends up playing with the box and have tons more fun with it!

What about the gift wrapping procedure itself? Once you use up all the paper, what's left over? Only the greatest thing ever! The cardboard tube!

And it's not just the kids who love cardboard! My cats are addicted to an empty box!

Who hasn't used the tube as a make shift horn. Or put their ear to one side and listened to the odd swooshing sound made by air entering the tube's tunnel. Or you've used the tubes to play with as swords or in my case- lightsabers!

Sometimes if you were really lucky, a family member had to buy something large- like a new fridge or a washing machine. INSTANT CLUB HOUSE! Or Fortress! Or pirate ship! Or tank! The ideas were literally endless.

Companies actually got wise to this and started making club houses out of cardboard. My cousins got one in which you could color it with markers!

There was this really awesome one I got for Christmas one year in which it unfolded into a space ship! It was printed on both sides. The interior had buttons and a view screen like the cockpit of a ship. But the really cool thing about this cardboard UFO was that it had all of these corners that could unfold the ship into dozens of shapes even turning it into a tall rocket!

Sadly, I cannot find pictures of this toy either in my collection of Christmases gone by photos or on Google. But man, was it cool! 

If I ever find a picture, I promise to update!

For my Advent gift for you today, here's a really cool video with over a dozen ideas for reusing that cardboard, including some neat stuff for the kiddies to play with! I hope they never get rid of cardboard- It's uses truly are limitless and FUN!

ENJOY!