Puzzles and games are essential for every kid as holiday gifts. Where to find a game that doesn’t encourage competition and bad feelings, though?

Growing up in my family, every person had to receive at least one puzzle for the holidays. As I grew older and more smart alecky, I gave my mother puzzles with thousands of pieces, or glowing pieces, or same on both sides, or some other nearly impossible puzzle. She still worked her way through every one. Now that my mother is gone, I still need to give my mother-in-law and my children puzzles. They drive me crazy, but everyone else loves them. I realize more over time that putting together a puzzle is a meditative activity, and it has always been one of those essential holiday activities in my family.

If you find that your children need that quiet time during a busy holiday season, consider encouraging down time with a puzzle. Also, if they see you doing a more difficult puzzle, they will get more and more curious until they take over. That’s my experience, anyway!

Another of those essentials for my family both growing up and now with my children is board games or card games. My children love playing my old games, and we still add several new games a year to our game closet. Over the holidays, we give small gifts over several days, and one day is always a game for the whole family. Since there are no other gifts to distract us, we have a family game day.

There are a lot of classic games available, but I find that my children become more competitive when they see the opportunity to win. That isn’t really the feel I’m going for with family game day, so we favor the cooperative games. At bynature.ca, we carry a lot of cooperative games and puzzles to fit your family’s interests.

Puzzles for Children

Port Side Pirates Puzzle

Looking for an interlocking puzzle? Set sail with these two puzzles based on the Port Side Pirates sing-along book. The 12-piece puzzle shows the pirate crew discovering a treasure chest ashore the tropical island. The 24-piece puzzle shows the pirate crew sailing the high seas aboard their ship. The two puzzles allow for a range of difficulty included all in one box.
Age: 3+

Wooden Mosaic Puzzle

If you are looking for a puzzle that will last longer than an interlocking puzzle that is used a few times, try our high quality wooden mosaics. Our large puzzle has 192 colorful triangle an trapezoid-shaped pieces. Arrange them in the bamboo tray or go rogue and put the rainbow of colors together any way that suits you. Includes a travel and storage bag.
Age: 3+

Cooperative Family Games

Elves and Ogres

The Royal Elf Family is coming to visit their Mountain Kingdom. They want the Elves (players) to fill their treasure chests with the different gems they mine. Ogres, however, have heard about the visit and plan to grab all the valuables for themselves. Work together to get Royals & Ogres alike to share the goodies. The game requires lots of tricky teamwork, increasing in difficulty with rules for 3 games based on age (ages 5-7, ages 7-12 & ages 12+).
Ages: 5+

Snowstorm

When a winter storm hits the city, the players help out residents by completing their tasks. The weather is constantly changing so players must keep on top of errands by paying attention to weather reports and moving through snow and ice with cars and service trucks. The game is different every time you play.
Ages: 5+

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Puppets make great small holiday gifts for children. You give not just the character you see but the character the puppet becomes for your child and the stories your child tells through the character.

Puppets inspire creativity, promote hands-on discovery, encourage interaction, teach fine and gross motor skills, help develop early language, and become a child’s lovable companion to be treasured for years.

We carry dozens of small animal hand puppets and finger puppets. You could collect a whole safari, but it usually just takes 1-2 puppets to start the story rolling.

Hand Puppets for Children

Each of our puppets comes with facts about the animal to help your child understand the creature in its own environment.

Little Turtle Hand Puppet

You will want to keep petting the textured shell of the turtle hand puppet. At about 7″ long, the hand puppets fit in a stocking then in your purse or your child’s bag for easy entertainment on the go.

Little Polar Bear Hand Puppet

This soft, furry polar bear comes with interesting facts about this solitary mammal. About 8″ tall.

Add these other hand puppets to your collection: Little Lion Puppet, Little Wolf Puppet, Little Lop Rabbit Puppet, Little Elephant Puppet, and more.

Finger Puppets for Children

Mini Fawn Finger Puppet

This soft fawn finger puppet easily fits in a pocket or a diaper bag. About 6″ long.

Mini Cardinal Finger Puppet

Your child will fly this bright, soft cardinal all over the house. What a great opportunity to learn about wild creatures of the world. About 5″ long.

Need a puppet for each hand? We also have these finger puppets: Mini Penguin Finger Puppet, Mini Black Sheep Finger Puppet, Mini Skunk Finger Puppet, Mini River Otter Finger Puppet, and many more. We have 20+ animal puppets to choose from.

Gifts that encourage open-ended play give your child more than just a morning of delight. They open up a wide, wild world of adventure.

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Quality isn’t necessarily your primary concern when you are looking for low-cost toys, diapers, clothing, and other children’s products. Many companies outsource production to keep costs low, which allows importers to sell to North American markets at lower prices than products Made in Canada or Made in USA. Often quality suffers for cost.

Over the past month, we’ve been looking at the real costs of imported children’s products. Today we look at quality of imported children’s products.

Give It to Me Quick

When you buy low-quality imports, you pay in safety and durability—and sometimes you pay at the store twice when you replace cheap products.

Quality Issues

Issues with imports overlap because they all lead to larger issues of sustainability.

Quality can be a safety issue. Last week, I wrote about safety and what you can do to ensure that you don’t buy unsafe children’s products. In some cases, safety issues are caused by inferior materials. As a matter of fact, the rash of recalls in 2007 of toys made in China and sold in the U.S. was the catalyst for safety law of 2008 after the U.S. CPSC recalled 276 different toys in 2007. Mattel alone recalled more than 20 million toys that year. A few of the recalls were for bad design, like the Easy Bake oven burn hazard and the magnetic Batman whose magnets fell off. Most of the toy recalls, though, were for lead in paint or other surface coatings. These toys were made in China with materials sourced in China.

How could so many low-quality toys come out of Chinese factories? Chinese officials wanted to know as well. Factories in China have to be licensed for export. After the recalls began in 2007, 1,726 factories in the province manufacturing the most toys, Guandong Province, were inspected, and 85% were found to be substandard. 44% lost their licenses, reducing the overall number of toy imports that year. When 70-80% of the toys sold in the U.S. are made in China, it shows on store shelves when Chinese factories fail so spectacularly.

What was the consequence of the toy recalls? A group of scholars from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) explored in 2009 consumer and stock market response to 2007 toy recalls. Parents surveyed said that they intended to change their buying habits, and researchers found a spillover effect in lower sales for non-recalled types of toys and for brands not involved in recalls. The whole industry suffered. Why didn’t consumers just avoid the offending manufacturers? Because “Consumers do not recognize manufacturers as well as they recognize brands and trademarks,” said Mara Lederman, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and one of the authors of the study. Consumers worried about the safety of all toys that year.

All of this because large toy manufacturers were cutting corners to squeeze costs and boost profits. None of the recalled toys were Made in Canada or Made in USA. Local toymakers weren’t wondering where they could get their hands on some of that cheap leaden paint or how to add a few exposed magnets to cut their costs. Small manufacturers often choose the highest quality materials and do highest quality work. They are making heirloom toys to last long enough that your child can save a favorite toy for their own child someday.

Durability is another cost issue. Inferior materials and faster work cost less, but they often result in products that don’t last as long. Making products that will break and need replacing is exactly the clever plan of Planned Obsolescence. You can’t stimulate demand by making toys that last a lifetime. The idea of making products that would last only for a limited time was a mid-20th century idea of American industry to ensure long-term sales. If toys didn’t break and diapers didn’t wear out, why would anyone ever buy more? They wouldn’t, and that would be the end of industry. You see your role in this process, of course. Once you are in the cycle, you must continue to buy as products regularly break or wear out.

The only way to release yourself from the cycle of replacing faulty, unsafe, or worn out products is to buy high quality products.

Lead-coated Toys of 2007

Lead in paint on toys made in China wasn’t the only story during the 2007 toy recalls, but it was the biggest story. In addition to the 20 million Mattel toys mentioned above, millions of toys made by other brands and under no brand at all were also recalled. It’s easier to relate to iconic brands, though, because we can recognize them so easily. Thomas the Tank Engine wooden trains are a product like that. In June 2007, 1.5 million Thomas & Friends wooden trains and components of 25 types were recalled. These colorful toys were coated in paint that contained lead. Now, to be clear, Thomas & Friends products currently sold are all certified compliant to the new toy safety laws.

Wooden Mite Cars

As an alternative to branded, mass-produced toy vehicles, we carry toys made from bamboo, recycled plastic, and wood. Among our favorites are the little Mites wooden cars and trucks. These are the same size as popular wooden train toys. The Mite cars are made in Vermont from local Eastern white pine and rock maple. The toymaker, Montgomery Schoolhouse, has been making wooden toys for 40 years. Like all other toymakers selling toys in the U.S., their products are also certified compliant to new toy safety laws.

Go-to Organization

ASTRA, the American Specialty Toy Retailing Association, works hard to help consumers find quality toys. The members of ASTRA are specialty stores, individually owned neighborhood toy stores. ASTRA urges you to shop at your Neighborhood Toy Store on Neighborhood Toy Store Day, November 10th. Participating stores have entertainment, crafts, donations, or other events scheduled that day. Search for a store near you.

To ensure that you and your child have a positive experience, buy smart in the first place. In ASTRA’s Toy Buying Guide, they suggest that you “Focus on the kind of play a toy encourages, rather than on the features of the toy. (i.e. Think about what the child can do, rather than what the toy can do.)” They give helpful suggestions for each developmental level.

What You Can Do

As with issues of safety, you can ask for certificates, but this only tells you whether a product passed a test in a lab. What you really want to know is whether the product will last long enough to meet your child’s needs. A test doesn’t necessarily answer that question for you.

Shop at a local toy store or baby boutique where you come to know and trust the staff. They are experts in children’s products. As them about the quality of toys and other products before you buy.

Check customer service reports. If you do have a problem with a product, will the store help you solve your problem, or are you out of luck? This customer service site shows Toys R Us has a 7% positive rating. Their lowest score is in Issue Resolution. Ouch.

Check reviews . Start with the bad reviews and look to see how long it lasted for other buyers. Let other parents share their experience with you, and do them the favor of sharing your honest experience with both positive and negative reviews for products and for stores.

Resources

Seth M. Freedman, Melissa Schettini Kearney, and Mara Lederman, “Product Recalls, Imperfect Information, and Spillover Effects: Lessons from the Consumer Response to the 2007 Toy Recalls,” National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2009.

Eric S. Lipton and David Barboza, “As More Toys Are Recalled, Trail Ends in China,” New York Times, June 19, 2007. “China manufactured every one of the 24 kinds of toys recalled for safety reasons in the United States so far this year, including the enormously popular Thomas & Friends wooden train sets, a record that is causing alarm among consumer advocates, parents and regulators.”

Toy Buying Guide, Your Neighborhood Toy Store (ASTRA)

More in this series

• “Cheap Products at What Cost?”
• “Imports at What Cost? Labour”
• “Imports at What Cost? Safety”
• “Imports at What Cost? Environment”
• “Imports at What Cost? Sustainability”
• “15 North American Made Gift Ideas”

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Are you facing a rainy day with restless kids indoors? Once my children decide that it is summer, they crave activity every day, even if they spend less time outside because of the weather. That’s when I find them bouncing around and looking for something interesting to do.

At bynature.ca, we have a few new toys that help your children find new worlds to explore indoors when they have had enough of the weather outdoors.

Angling Fever Toy Fishing Game

I can hear it. You ask your child, “Do you want to go fishing?” But, it’s raining outside. Create an adventure day inside with this fishing game. There are four poles and twelve fish in four colours, so you can try to match colors by catching the fish and putting them on the stand of the same colour, or just mix up the rainbow. Includes small parts, so this toy is for over 3 years old only.

Wooden Toy Spaceship

For hours of imaginative play, our new wooden spaceship can take your child from blast off to splash down. Includes human (and alien) figures, vehicles, and a bunch of moving parts on the ship itself. 37 pieces total—all wood, so you can feel good about your child spending hours with this toy. This is an adorable and durable toy.

Wishbone Flip Ride-on Rocking Toy

For restless toddlers, you need a tough toy that encourages activity and stays interesting for a long time. With the Wishbone Flip, your active explorer can rock, ride, or push. It takes you, the parent, just a few seconds (and no tools) to flip and twist. You can also adjust the main bolts so the toy grows with your child. This is a beautiful wooden toy made with sustainably managed beech wood. We love this toy both for its sustainability and the flexible fun it provides a toddler.

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Are the holiday toys getting old yet? If you need to renew the toy box, you can lend, borrow, or trade with parents in the same situation. Create a toy trading circle to keep your child’s toys new.

I don’t know how often a child needs a new toy—really NEEDS a new toy—but I found it worked best to vary the time between new toys. Surprise new toys were wonderful! Surprise old favorite even more so.

Now that they have more control over their own possessions, my children still trade toys with their friends. I don’t think there is an age limit on the idea of toy trading.

Set the Rules with the Parents

Talk to parents at play groups and in the neighborhood to see if they are experiencing a similar toy fatigue. Whether you involve the children depends very much on their age. A two-year old is very unlikely to give up any toy in their hands, but a few years later you might find your child intrigued by the idea of a trade. Set the rules of the trade with the other parents.

Clean Toys

Be sure to clean the toys well. If the toys can’t be put in the dishwasher, at least find a non-toxic toy cleaner to clean them up for the next family. Usually, vinegar and warm water will do.

Buy and Sell Toys on Consignment

If you haven’t found a circle of friends to trade toys with, create your own circle with a consignment store.

Toy Retirement

If you have enough toys in your own family, you can rotate toys out of the toy box into the attic. When I found that my children had too many toys and too little time to appreciate them, I created a toy retirement program. Put one away to get one back out. It was interesting to see which toys they chose once they had to give it some careful thought. You might learn something you didn’t know about your child’s real preferences.

Image © Marzanna Syncerz | Dreamstime.com

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This year I’m seeing a trend in wooden toys: an emphasis on sustainably harvested wood and non-toxic finishes to make the toys completely safe for children. We’re very impressed with two companies whose products we’ve begun to carry recently: Tegu magnetic wooden blocks and Anamalz posable wooden animal figures.

Tegu

Tegu are magnetic blocks made from eco-friendly wood that is safe and non-toxic for children. These blocks are designed to be socially and environmentally sustainable. The business creates jobs and preserves the environment in Honduras. A simple toy like blocks gives children plenty of space to engage their imagination.

Tegu adds a twist. The magnets encased in these blocks allow children to build up and out. Tegu blocks can dance! Watch videos of the Tegu Genius creating animals, vehicles, and dancing vegetables.

Tegu magnetic blocks
Origin: Made responsibly in Honduras
Age: 3+
This product contains small parts and magnets. Not for children under 3.

Available

• Set of 52 wooden blocks, dyed or natural
• Set of 26 wooden blocks, dyed or natural
• Travel set of 8 wooden blocks plus pocket pouch, dyed or undyed

Anamalz

Anamalz are eco-friendly wooden animals made from sustainably forested maple. Even the waste wood is used on a farm to grow mushrooms. Anamalz are coloured with water-based paint and fabric used is azo dye and formaldehyde-free. Each of the Anamalz is handmade, tested and certified according to international toy standards.

Limbs on Anamalz are posable as your child twists and turns the wire inside cotton rope. Look closely at the limbs on some of the animals. The crocodile’s tail, for example, is fabric-covered and posable. The flexibility of these animal figures encourages role play and other open-ended imaginative play. Apparently, adults can’t resist either, as you can see when you watch animated Anamalz videos.

Anamalz posable animal figures
Origin: Designed in Australia, made responsibly in China.
Age: 3+
This product contains small parts. Not for children under 3.

Available

• Bear
• Crocodile
• Cow
• Elephant
• Gorilla
• Goat
• Horse
• Hippo
• Lion
• Panda
• Pig
• Black Ram
• White Woolly Sheep
• Tiger
• Zebra

When you give your child a toy as a gift, either of these wooden toys leaves wide open spaces for imagination with long-term environmental sustainability.

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We come back to the subject of natural toys often. When the main motivation for choosing toys is to make them plastic-free, I see three main options for materials: wood, natural rubber, and cloth. There are so many great, natural toys available that no child needs plastic toys. It’s just not necessary.

Wood

Before there was hard plastic for toys, there was wood. When I lived in western New York, a friend of mine worked at Fisher Price. I wasn’t that keen to hear about her work because I wasn’t about to use the plastic toys. I remembered their classic wooden toys from my own childhood, though, so I poked and prodded her about that every once in a while asking, “When are you going to start making wooden toys again?” She told me about the wooden prototypes made now to test new toy ideas. “Can I get those?” No, sadly, even those toys that had been classic wooden toys were all made out of plastic and I was not allowed to see, touch, or take home any wooden prototypes. What’s the mental block against a return to the toys that worked so well for so long?

ByNature.ca carries a lot of clicky, clacky, colorful Haba toys. Most of them are rattles and chew toys or both. We also carry the simplest baby toy, a wooden egg shaker, and quite a few little wooden cars and wheeled animals.

Natural Rubber

When my daughter was very young, I realized that her rubber ducky wasn’t rubber. It was made from stinky, cheap old plastic. I was very unpopular when I removed the Plastic Ducky from bathtime for all time. Long after the sting of removing the toxic toy wore off, my daughter found a natural rubber duck (the one shown above) and embraced it as part of her healthy pre-teen lifestyle. She told me that a rubber duck was one toy she had always wanted. As a therapist friend of mine says, it’s never too late to have a happy childhood.

Natural rubber is what early soft plastics were trying to be. Then there was the plastic goo we call Silly Putty. I wrote about the development of rubber-like plastics and the benefits of natural rubber toys last year. Sophie the Giraffe has been handmade of natural rubber for over 50 years, and she’s gaining in popularity. We’ve come full circle back to natural rubber, which never actually went away.

Cloth

Ah, that new doll smell. Your child falls asleep hugging her doll and sniffing that vinyl chloride. No, that’s not a pretty picture. It’s easy to replace plastic dolls with fabric dolls appropriate to any age. ByNature.ca has a collection of organic cotton teething toys and stuffed animals, whose knotted and firm feet and hands are perfect for chewing babies, and we also have small (12″) Waldorf natural baby dolls. The doll my daughter loves and adores for all time is a cotton and wool Waldorf doll of this size.

One of my favorite natural alternatives to common plastic toys is felt play food for playing house, restaurant, store, and so on.

Play cloths are everything in my family. They are wings, capes, rivers, Halloween costumes, decorations, gift wrapping, and more. They aren’t really a replacement for a plastic toy, but I guess they could be seen as an alternative to one-time use or single-purpose off-gassing Halloween costumes or plastic hats or so many other toys that require a little less imagination in play. Having a cape and a collection of silk play cloths around means that you have a huge variety of costumes and toys that take up almost no space. No space means great for travel, by the way.

Art Supplies

There is a place that plasticizers used to sneak into children’s toys, before certain phthalates were banned in children’s products in the U.S., where parents didn’t necessarily think to look for them: art supplies. Kids eat glue and paint, they suck on crayons while they dream of their masterpieces. It’s important to have non-toxic children’s art supplies. ByNature.ca stocks a beautiful collection of Clementine art supplies.

I’ve written a lot about toys made with natural materials as alternatives to plastic toys. It might help to completely throw out ideas about toys and start over with games and natural toys that nurture imagination rather than just trying to find a substitute for a plastic toy.

This week we’ve also suggested plastic-free feeding and plastic-free sleeping products for children. These are Eco Baby Steps, but this is still a STUFF-oriented approach. At the end of June, I will write about how and why we need to make much bigger changes to leave plastics and their toxic chemicals of concern behind us.

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Those gorgeous handmade toys your baby plays with are supported by small business people who make toys because they love children and they love the craft.

The Business of Handmade

Yesterday, members of the Handmade Toy Alliance board of directors testified at the U.S. Commerce Sub-committee hearing regarding the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). The board has been working with the Sub-committee for months. With requests for specific changes, the Handmade Toy Alliance officially endorsed draft legislation that would bring about changes for small-batch manufacturers, Consumer Product Safety Enhancement Act (CPSEA).

Children’s product manufacturers in the U.S. and Canadian exporters to the U.S. have been wondering for the past 18 months how to comply with the strict testing and labelling requirements of the new law. Understanding the law has been a difficult task for all. For the smallest manufacturers, meeting testing requirements has seemed almost impossible. The Handmade Toy Alliance formed when small business owners came together determined to understand and change the law.

I’ve watched their growth over that time, and these crafters, store owners, and other small business owners have come to understand the system of legislation and regulation—and media. It has been exciting to see them learn how to communicate with rulemakers when the system can seem so overwhelming.

At the heart of this increasingly sophisticated organization are people who do what they do because they care about handmade toys. It’s so simple. They love sock monkeys and felt blocks and play dough. Without their work to push back against this law, to help lawmakers understand how they work every day to preserve toy safety, we might have seen fewer handmade toys available for our children.

Supporting Handmade

For the past month, I’ve spent every Friday writing about the book The Creative Family: How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connections by Amanda Blake Soule.

The focus of the book is on young children, but I have found plenty to hold the interest of my pre-teen children as well. The book is part of the natural family library of Baby ByNature.ca.

For my last dip into the book, I like a section in the “Handmade Holidays” chapter of the Connecting section of the book called “Supporting Handmade.” As my son’s 10th birthday comes up in the next week, I want to emphasize that any time can be a holiday season if your definition of holiday is broad enough.

“The holiday season can be a great time to show support for crafters and artists for the meaningful work they do. . . . Affordable arts and crafts surround us; we just need to look in the right places to find them.”

Her ideas for finding handmade are:

• Local craft fairs
• Art shows sponsored by local colleges
• Online through sites like Etsy

And, I might add, the members of the Handmade Toy Alliance also sell beautiful children’s toys, and they care deeply about the safety of your children.

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This following post was an entry in our Blog to Inspire contest. The opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and not necessarily those of Eco Baby Steps or Parenting By Nature.

Blog to Inspire entrant Left Coast Mama is Gwen Floyd of Vancouver—mother, blogger, and lover of sarcasm.

I am the first to admit that we have a lot of plastic toys in our house, and some of them require batteries. Most of those that require batteries have not been purchased by us. What I like about most of the toys we have, whether they be plastic or wooden is that they encourage creative, imaginative play. There is so much room for storytelling and role playing with toys like the little people sets, but my favourite toys are the wooden trains and the dress-up clothes.

We got Aidan his first wooden train set with a small table when he was 19 months old. It was just a no-name set with some wooden track, houses, trees, some street signs and of course a few trains. While I knew he would like the trains, and he already liked the train set at our local Chapters, for the first year it was mainly for me to play with him. When he was a little older his father and I made tracks for him but the play was all him. He had different scenarios, and often there were terrific “derailments” and emergency vehicles coming to the rescue.

Now at 4 and a half, Aidan is a track making king. Almost everyday our small living room is taken over by intricate tracks, with bridges, tunnels, switches, curves, stations and whatever else he decides is needed for the day’s mission. I am in awe of how much fine motor skills he is honing with each track he makes. The spatial reasoning he displays is amazing. He is using his hands on approach to figure out how things work, and if it doesn’t he goes on to the next idea. These tracks are ever expanding and ever changing. He will take a track in one direction and when he is finished find a way to make another really complicated piece fit in somewhere else and take it in another direction. With the amount of attention that our 1 year old Quinlan shows the trains he will be a track king even sooner than Aidan was.

We are also big fans of the “Tickle Trunk” here in the Floyd household. We have a few hats like a fire helmet, a police helmet and a wizard’s hat, as well as some home made items like the heart shaped magic wand. My favourite item in amongst the costumes is a beautiful wizard’s cape that my brother’s fiancée made for Aidan for Christmas last year. It is a beautiful deep blue velvet with stars all over it. It is even more special because she made it especially for him. Sometimes this cape turns Aidan into a wizard like the sorcerer’s apprentice, and sometimes he is a superhero. Whatever he needs it to be, it is.

Aidan and some intricate track.

I know that it is hard in this day and age to stop ourselves from giving our children everything they want. It is even harder if the children you have are the only grandchildren on both sides of the family. In some ways I know the only reason we are not totally overrun is because we live so far away from our extended family. Both Anthony and I are trying to make the effort to really make sure that the toys we get for our sons are educational, sturdy and engage them in imaginative play. We don’t want to have our sons’ toys be things that don’t last much longer than a few days out of the box. It is an ongoing battle with ourselves and with our 4 year old. Luckily he takes the word “no” a lot better than a lot of kids I know. I also know that we are not the only ones who have these battles, we are just more adept saying “no” at times because we have no room.

What are your favourite toys for creative and imaginative play?

Read about the Blog to Inspire contest and read posts by the finalists and by the rest of the entrants. Forty-four bloggers reached out to inspire on the topics of cloth diapers, babywearing, breastfeeding, and natural parenting.

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This following post was an entry in our Blog to Inspire contest. The opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and not necessarily those of Eco Baby Steps or Parenting By Nature.

Blog to Inspire entrant Tiny Offerings is Julia Bain.

Recently our family and friends celebrated my eldest daughters fifth birthday. Born on Halloween, she shares her day with a growing commercial holiday. We do our best to set her celebration apart, choosing a theme that reflects who she is, what she likes and the season in which she was born. This year we talked about what to do, who to invite and what she might like to put on her wish list.

Since Mommy, Daddy and her close family members would buy her gifts; I suggested that we ask her friends not to bring presents. After all, we had so many toys already. What, I asked, could we do instead?

She thought about it for a moment, and then made a suggestion…..

“Well, how about we ask my friends to make me a craft?”

With a big smile and a sigh of relief, I praised her for coming up with such an amazing idea! I could not have thought of anything more appropriate myself, especially given Paige’s love for all things crafty. The evites were sent, with a request for her friends to make and share a special handmade craft instead of a traditional present.

Keeping to the theme, I sewed an owl print nightie, a colourful blouse and a wool felt birthday crown. I avoided filling loot bags with junk food and other novel items. Instead, we baked owl shaped cookies, added wooden covered notebooks and puzzles, daffodil bulbs to be planted, and story books about fall themes such as harvest, owls, and nests for winter.

I gently suggested that family follow suit, either making something, or in choosing a gift from her humble wish list which included a unicorn stuffie, a doll bed, a toy iron and ironing board and a pretend toaster. My Mother and Father, for example, brought a toy wooden bunk bed set that had been my mother’s as a girl.

The birthday party was a ‘hoot’. It was an owl theme at Mountsburg Conservation area. The children (20 including younger siblings!) delighted in a craft, puppet show and nature walk to view various birds of prey. As the party came to an end, we sang happy birthday, ate home made cupcakes and opened the lovingly made gifts (complete with proud faces)!

I could not have been more proud of Paige, who without any direction from us, took time carefully opening and studying each gift. I believe she truly felt the love and careful attention put into each creation, made especially for her by her friends!

As parents, we oftentimes follow a set of unwritten rules and customs at birthdays and during holidays, even when they are not the best choices for our families. It is not easy to go against the grain, to do something different than what is being done. If we don’t break the mold, how do we begin to teach our children to want less, conserve more, and to appreciate the true spirit of giving, outside of the trap of commercialism and materialism?

Christmas is coming and I urge you to try. Try giving handmade gifts (they don’t have to be made by you! You can support WAHM’s and grass root businesses), gifts of conscience for the environment and for our world’s children. World vision, UNICEF, Red Cross and World Wildlife fund provide many excellent ideas, just to name a few.

For a teacher, for example, donate a backpack with school supplies for a child in need, for a pet lover; adopt an endangered species, for a beloved child, buy a repurposed or sustainably made eco toy. There are many eco friendly options available to us at like minded businesses.

It is a fine balance, to add meaning to what we buy, what we give and why we give it but it is possible. To prove this point, I have a very happy and loved five year old, who understands the value of a toy from the past and the care that goes into a handmade present. She takes pleasure in a toy found in nature or those made with natural materials. Simply put, she is learning, along with her mama, that there is a more natural and purposeful way to live.

Read about the Blog to Inspire contest and read posts by the finalists and by the rest of the entrants. Forty-four bloggers reached out to inspire on the topics of cloth diapers, babywearing, breastfeeding, and natural parenting.

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