Toy stories

Toys, Grant Munro, provided by the National Film Board of Canada

If you spend any time in stores, you will have noticed Christmas is apparently coming up. (I saw my first fully lit and decorated Christmas tree in a hardware store on November 6 this year. Seriously!)

Just in time for this holiday season, Montreal’s McCord Museum has opened a new exhibition called Toys. From November 14 to March 6, 2011, Museum will display a vast collection of toys, including rare antique and vintage items, ranging from very cute 1940s stuffed animals in outfits to fancy European miniature cars. The interactive show is designed for children 3 to 10 but would probably appeal to anyone who’s ever played with dolls or army men figures. (Personally I got pretty excited about this little owl guy and friends.)

To echo the opening of this exhibition, we’ve decided to feature Toys by Grant Munro on NFB.ca today. Definitely more a reflection on the types of toys we put in the hands of our children than a children’s film (it does get pretty violent by the end there), we felt the short film would be a timely companion piece to the McCord show, and more generally, to the frantic toy-purchasing spree that is the month of December.

If you’re curious about the exhibit but can’t make it to downtown Montreal, you can visit the online version of the exhibition here.