CJ and Alexander’s First Christmas Toy Story
A baby’s first Christmas season is a meaningful milestone for families. Long before ever working as the marketing director at Bella Luna Toys, CJ Neal was a customer, shopping for her son’s first Christmas. After years of being a nanny for a Waldorf family, she had seen the power of open-ended Waldorf toys first hand.
As she watched the daily play that unfolded with the children she cared for, she fell in love with the beautiful toys they played with. These Waldorf toys were played with in a million different ways and were turned into so many different things. The wooden rainbow wasn’t just a rainbow, it was a dollhouse, a stable for wooden animals, the controls for flying a plane, or a telephone. What CJ took away from all these wonderful moments was how the children’s imaginations fully controlled the play rather than being directed by the toy. The play was completely lead by the child and their limitless imaginations.
When choosing toys for Alexander, she was in search of natural materials and toys that would grow with him through the years. By this time, he was sitting up and beginning to crawl. The 6-piece rainbow from Grimm’s Wooden Toys, the smaller version of the rainbow that she had watched transform children’s play for so many years, was her number 1 choice. Alexander immediately began banging the pieces together to make fun sounds and building towers to knock down. Over the years he has made them into so many things, and even as his toy collection has grown, he continues to bring this small rainbow into his play seven years later. The colorful arches aren’t pristine any longer but the marks and scratches show the years of meaningful play it provided and offer their own beautiful story.
Along with the rainbow, she picked out a mini rainbow play silk, the first of many Sarah’s Silks toys in their home. It immediately became the perfect hiding place for peekaboo, the sweetest blanket to wrap around a little doll, and accessory for every dance party. Play silks provided a beautiful way to introduce a soft and sweet material into the playroom.
A soft and cuddly Nanchen Bella Baby was a must have. These sweet dolls are 100% organic and the perfect size for a first doll. This doll still lives with all of Alexander's little loveys, stuffed animals, and babies and has held up steadily over all of these years because of it's heirloom quality.
With a car-obsessed child, CJ knew she had to find the perfect wooden vehicles. The Grimm’s wooden cars are a perfect choice for babies who are sitting, crawling, and starting to walk. These natural wooden cars were cherished and pushed across every floor and room in the house, for many years.
There was one final thing that CJ chose even though it was not something that Alexander played with right away but was a gift that started a tradition. “I bought his first Ostheimer figure. I was so in love with the craftsmanship and the beautiful beveled edges and hand-painted details, but buying an entire farmyard of wooden animals was out of reach.”
Instead, CJ began to begin build a collection slowly, adding to it on every holiday, tucking them into stockings, Easter baskets and birthday gifts. By doing this slowly, they’ve been able to build a beautiful collection over the years which is so meaningful to them both. “It’s something that I will keep many years past his childhood and hopefully someday, if he ever decides to have children, be able to pass on to them.”
These days CJ is hard at work selecting and developing the beautiful toys we sell at Bella Luna Toys, but she still recommends these first picks to every parent, friends, family and customers alike. “No matter what you pick, my number one tip is offering beautiful and natural toys that will grow through your child’s many stages of play.”
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