Lego Nostalgia

Childhood involved with LEGO

These days we are surrounded by a lot of electronic gadgets to play with: smartphones, tablets, laptops, playstation, you name them. But I am lucky enough to live across both analog and digital eras — I got my first computer (intel 486) when I was Grade 4 in elementary school. Before that, my primary toy was LEGO.

Believe it or not, I actually believed that Santa Clause existed until I was 14 because Santa always gave me a new Lego collection on every Christmas. It was the happiest moment when I open my eyes in Christmas morning, a shiny new Lego set was right next to my pillow. Of course now I know that it was my parents who bought the Lego, not Santa, but I still have that warm feeling and it was one of my happiest childhood memories.

I used to have a lot of cool Lego collections. I had a big castle with medieval knights and dragons, a medium-size pirate ship, and even I had this giant Lego Technic dinosaur set.

This took me the entire Christmas day to assemble the dinosaur.

It’s almost 20 years ago but even that time the Lego collections were expensive. My mom told me that when I was young I did not whine about what I wanted to get. So even if I discovered the Lego collection I really wanted to get, I never asked her to buy one. But she remembered it and she surprised me by putting that collection next to my pillow, disguised as Santa.

I am now almost 30 and I am no longer a child, nor do I believe in Santa anymore. But yesterday I bought a small LEGO — Lord of the Rings: Wizard Battle collection from Walmart because, well, it is winter now and I wanted to feel the same way I felt 20 years ago.

I am not planning on assembling this set. Instead I just put it next to my pillow just like Christmas morning so that whenever I wake up, I can see Lego next to me, just like old Christmas days.