This year we are having a slow Christmas.
Esther and William will be receiving mostly traditional wooden toys to fill their play platforms above their beds in their rather lovely, Daddy made, bedroom.
We are making one exception though.
Esther and William will both be getting HappyLand sets for Christmas from the ELC.
Esther and William love HappyLand and play for hours with the sets that we already have.
Our most loved and used is probably the farm.
Esther also adores her fairy tree house which has been such an important part of our imaginings about Baby Tilda in heaven since she died.
HappyLand is a magical place where children can explore and adventure. There are lots of people, animals, vehicles and buildings to collect.
We started our collection with the wedding set which I bought for Esther and William when David and I got married in 2011.
We then created a little high street for them with a toy shop and a post office and a vet. Each of these buildings came with a vehicle, a person and an animal. The buildings have buttons to press that make sounds such as doorbells and telephone rings.
Esther and William have had hours of enjoyment through their HappyLand play.
This year Esther and William will receive the Happy Land Christmas set as part of our Advent Adventure so that they can act out stories with Father Christmas and the snowman. These would be great in a tuff spot filled with flour and sugar for snow. Or even better outside in the real snow!!
I can imagine Esther and William playing with these sets with the Christmas music on in the background and them making the characters go dashing through the snow and play with Rudolph the red nosed reindeer. Festive fun for all the family!
Our most played with HappyLand sets are definitely the farm complete with tractor and trailer and of course, the double decker bus. Esther and William have lost many hours to loading and unloading the bus. Making the inhabitants of HappyLand queue for the bus. These sets have been well used and very well loved.
They have been played with inside and out in the garden. Used for imaginary play and as accessories in messy and sensory play.
Happy Land can be a place to reenact real life scenarios or can provide a complete escape from the realities of the day to day.
William loves acting out the feed run from our holiday at Coombe Mill. See you soon Farmer Nick!
William especially has long been able to lose himself in the land of his imagination. He is the King of HappyLand.
And he looks after his people very well, even taking them for rides on his ride on toys!
There are lots of HappyLand people to collect and they can be bought individually or in family groups or as sets such as Fairies and People Who Help Us.
We are huge fans of HappyLand. Can you tell?
I have mentioned on the blog already that Esther and William will be getting the Happy Land train set this Christmas, they are also going be sharing the Happy Land Fun Fair. I think we are all going to have a lot of fun.
A lovely escape that we all need. A holiday without leaving home. The wonders of imaginary toys and toys designed with role play and small world play in mind.
Want to make your children happy this Christmas? Give them some Happyland!
I keep hearing of Happy Land and nothing but good things too! I must keep it in mind once Belle is old enough to play with it. Looks like so much fun. And how amazing are the twins beds with the above play platforms!!! x
We are also crazy about happyland and have been collecting the toys for a while!
But wait… I did not know there was a farm! How did I miss that one! I am getting into the ELC website now to check it out.
We have the train track – very noisy! But lots of fun.
Have a HappyLand Christmas xx
We do have quite a bit of Happyland. To be honest though, I struggle with playing with these kinds of things with them and encouraging the type of play you describe. Any suggestions would be great! x
We are big HappyLand fans too – Olivia particularly likes the Royal Baby set and also the Around the World. One of the figures is a man in an Arabic dishdasha and I think because we took her to the Middle East from an early age, she is always particularly drawn to it and calls him Abdullah, after one of the members of staff in the hotel we stayed in! I love that the toys are so brightly coloured and durable!!x
We love happyland too, it was the one toy in nursery where I worked before having children,that lasted and lasted and got played with all the time, you can tell that was a few years back, It used to be called happy street then ELC changed the name, I still refer to it as happy street!! Olivia has the pretty house, the pink castle which is amazing and the farm, she plays with it every day, she got all those sets for her birthday and Christmas last year!