Apologies for showing something Christmas-y before Thanksgiving, but in case this submission from our New England Koloist friend HC generates interest in the cause, there's a fast-approaching deadline to consider:

The earlier Treasure Boxes post showing the Amelie clip got me thinking of this. It's a kind of treasure box, to be sure:

One of our favorite Thanksgiving-time rituals at our house is packing up the toys we've collected throughout the year into a gift-wrapped shoe box and delivering it to Operation Christmas Child, which distributes thousands of these shoe boxes full of donated toys to needy kids around the world. (It's religious-based, but no matter what you believe, it feels great to give toys to poor children.)

We keep this Kolo Havana Box on a shelf in our living room (because it's more attractive than a shoe box). Whenever we go on a trip, instead of a souvenir for ourselves that would become just another knick-knack dust-collector, we buy a small toy and put it in the box. It's fun! By November the box is full. I especially love giving the classic stuff I played with as a kid -- a Slinky, Matchbox cars, a yo-yo, a squisy Koosh ball, Silly Puddy... In November we transfer the toys to a shoe box and bring it to our area's drop-off location. Then our Kolo Havana is empty again, ready to be re-filled next year.

For those of you new to Koloist, there's an ongoing discussion about treasure boxes. To see previous posts on the subject, use this blog's search field and search the words: treasure box

Great thing to do for a little kid - thanks, HC.

- Ugo