click the small pictures to enlarge

Several years ago, when the kids were still young enough to be called kids, I wanted to do something quirky that would make the Christmas more fun and memorable.  You know the saying, "You give a kid a great present, and what do they play do?! - They play with the box."

Hmmmmmm.  Interesting.

The first Christmas after my step-children and I entered each others' lives, Laura, the youngest, was 11 years old.  We enjoyed a small Christmas together and I put one of Laura's Christmas presents in a wrapped box I had made that was shaped like a pyramid.  We had given Jacob a radio controlled car, and the pyramid box served double-duty as a pretty good ramp.



The boxes had trap doors that let us put their presents inside - and a way for them to get their presents out.  Laura, being Laura, even crawled inside her tropical box.  The theater and pentagon were one foot thick.  The base holding the coconut trees was 4' x 2' x 1'.

I made the boxes using 2 x 4 foot sheets of cardboard I bought wholesale.  Taped them together with packaging tape along the edges, and reinforced them on the inside corners and walls with slabs of styrofoam hot-glued in place.

This brings us to the giant Christmas box wall of 2003...

It was constructed as the other boxes, using 2' x 4' cardboard sheets, styrofoam, hot glue and packaging tape.  It was 6 feet tall, 8 feet wide and 2 feet deep.  Each of the two bottom pair of boxes had 2, 1 inch diameter PVC pipe going through their full 8' width, for stability.  The top pair of boxes were only 1 foot deep and had only 1 PVC rod through it.  If the top boxes had been any deeper, it would be difficult for the kids to reach the presents in the top section without a ladder.  (Just in case, we had a ladder nearby.)

The theme for the box mural wasn't very Christmas-like.  It was a beach and underwater scene. The subjects were a: shark (with open mouth), oyster with pearl, crab, reeds with seahorse, 2 fish, starfish, shipwrecked vessel with porthole (the USS Laura), treasure chest (that came out of the hole in the ship), giant rock (that caused the hole in the ship), and coral.

The Project Process
Building began in September. The 6 front panels were taped together, hung from the ceiling and the sketch of the mural was drawn on them.  The front panels were separated from one another and  used as the face to build each of the boxes. The holes were cut for the port hole and the shark's mouth. The trap doors (8 of them) were cut and the folded edges reinforced with tape.  The holes and areas to be painted by hand were masked.  The overall blue ocean, tan sand and brown rock were spray painted on the front and sides. After drying, the boxes were moved into the warm house and they completely engulfed my office.  The details of each subject were painted by hand using paint markers and colorific(tm) markers.  Teeth for the shark were made from sheets of white craft foam; grey foam for the rest of the shark mouth. The inside of the porthole was covered with black foam cut from the center to the edges so they could get their hands in the box.

When did I find the time?  Every moment I wasn't working at my job.  That's why I started in September.

AND THE KIDS DIDN'T EVEN SEE IT UNTIL THE DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS! It was great.  They went out shopping and when they came back - POOF! - there was their wall, complete with their names and presents inside.

All the time spent was worth it to see their faces and hear their exclamations when they saw it and examined it... and then watching them search through all the openings to get their presents.

Why build the giant boxes?  Because it made them smile.  Because they still talk about the boxes even now and dig out the photo albums to look at pictures of them.  Because it would give them a memorable moment or two.  Because it was fun..  The challenge, creation and anticipation of their reactions were all fun.

When Laura stuck the whole top of her body into the shark's mouth on Christmas day, it was all well worth it.

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