Go Fly a Kite

Posted on | February 28, 2008 | Comments Off

And I do mean that in the nicest of ways!

Kites are the local theme in the gifts arena in our family these past few weeks. Five weeks ago, walking the aisles of our local Toys R’ Us, my husband discovered a treasure. A kite clearance sale where 20 kites were offered for a mere $10! Yes, you read it right, only 50 cents per kite. A fan of flying just about anything through the sky be it hot air balloons, RC planes/gliders, rockets or kites, he simply couldn’t resist the offer and came back home with a pile of colorful plastic kites.

He’s been flying them ever since then, whenever there’s some wind and available time. We’re down to about 10 kites by now, as five were given as gifts to other kite afficiandos, and five have come to their final resting place at the top of various tall trees in our town.

I’m not sure where you can find such an amazing bargain again, but I can tell you that those kites made for wonderful gifts for kids and adults alike. They were durable and flew extremely well, despite their low price (and our low expectations). Flying a kite seemed to thrill both boys and girls. I confess, my 37 year old husband probably enjoyed the kite flying more than our 4 and 6 yo kids. They loved it for the first 10 minutes or so, but after that, the excitement only peaked again when something dramatic happened (such as a kite breaking loose with the entire family chasing it – thank Goodness there are tall trees all around!).

Browsing through Amazon.com for some kite images to use in this point, my youngest son Dan was around and insisted on “kites with super heroes” on them, so consider this the top three kites, as selected by four years old boy with a passion for Superman and his pals: Captain America, Spiderman and Speedy from the movie Cars!

There were two things that bothered me about the kites. They were not environmentally friendly and they were not old-fashioned homemade kites. So, I’ll end this post with links to a few online pages that I found that teach you to make your own eco-friendly kites. These can make splendid gifts for kids of all ages and you can personalize them too!: