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| Celebrating the joys of toys,
| 24.2.2010 |
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| " 'The time has come,' the Walrus said, 'to talk of many things: of shoes and ships and Zhu Zhu Pets, Little Mommy Baby Ah-choo, Eye- Clops Night Vision Goggles and Wii Sports Resort.'" tag heuer replica The butchered line from "The Walrus and the Carpenter" (a poem in Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Gl.") sounds like a Christmas wish list to me. Like Carroll, yesterday's youngsters used imagination instead of virtual reality to create a world of fun. A simple cardboard box could be a playhouse or a portal to Wonderland. In fact, the cardboard box is among 44 cl.ic toys in the Toy Hall of Fame at the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, N.Y. Among old favorites in the museum are alphabet blocks, checkers, Silly Putty, the Hula Hoop, the Radio Flyer Wagon, Monopoly, marbles, jump rope and the Big Wheel. None require .embly or batteries, every parent's Christmas Eve nightmare. British comic Bernard Manning said, "I once bought my kids a set of batteries for Christmas with a note on it saying, 'Toys not included.' " I had a Tiny Tears doll; now little girls want a doll that sneezes and has symptoms of H1N1. What happened to cap pistols? Today, boys dream of adding night-vision goggles to their arsenal. Gone are the days when simple playthings - marbles, coloring books and crayons and paper dolls - topped wish lists. My mother gave away my paper dolls when I went to college. (I love you Mom, but I'm not over the paper doll thing yet.) - Dancing dolls, toy soldiers, sugar plum fairies and a nutcracker prince were special guests at the Nutcracker Tea at the Ponte Vedra Inn and Club on Nov. 22. The tea precedes the annual Nutcracker ballet, which will be Saturday, Dec. 12, at the University of North Florida Lazzara Theater. Fourteen years ago, choreographer Felicia Rhoden .embled a cast of 14 dancers for the premiere production at Christ Episcopal Church, when "it was just a dance recital," said the Rev. Gerry Walston, who has played the role of Herr Drosselmeyer since the beginning. The cast expanded to 300, and the audience outgrew three performance halls. Five years ago, Rhoden's daughter, Claire Duffy, conceived the idea of a Nutcracker Tea, which, like the Nutcracker, has taken on a life of its own. This year Robin DiRito co-chaired the tea with replica rolex Duffy. Excited youngsters of all ages, some in their Sunday best and others in costume, bounced, chattered and consumed .pcakes, cookies and punch as sugar plum fairies gave a preview of the upcoming production. Money raised by the ballet goes to the pediatric program at Northeast Florida Community Hospice, an orphanage in Bolivia and Dreams Come True for a critically ill child. - The world economy has "an Alice in Wonderland quality," thanks to interventions that have been successful in pulling the economy "back from the brink," Zanny Minton Beddoes, economics editor at The Economist magazine, said at the World Affairs Council of Jacksonville's Nov. 17 program at UNF. Beddoes addressed global economic issues at the evening meeting, which was preceded by a VIP cocktail reception for sponsors and patrons. The council partners with UNF to bring internationally known speakers to Jacksonville. The free lectures address issues that expand understanding of the world and its people. Water Street Capital, Chubb Personal Insurance, Lender Processing Services and McGuire Woods LLP sponsored Beddoes' lecture, which attracted about 800 people, and there was a waiting list. Everyone obviously is eager to know if recovery is in sight. Mixing optimism with pessimism, Beddoes p | |
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