It's advent for the Playmobil people in our house...

[SoMuchToBits]

...and so each day up until Christmas I'll be bringing you some festive scenes from Playmoland. Today Franziska and Heinz are putting up their Christmas decorations.

Catching up after eye surgery. Playmoland is doubly bright today!

Oh dear @FuzzyPuffling I hope I haven't blinded you with Renate's bright pink hair .

Certainly a style icon! 😎

@Clabony one of the things I love about Playmobil is all the small details in the sets they do!

You do it really well. It's a real talent you have for bringing the story to life. 😍

Thank you!

Today the Lowbeach Players are putting on a production of Hansel and Gretel. Hansel and Gretel live in a house near the woods with their woodcutter father and their mother.

They are very poor and have to go foraging in the woods for food and for sticks of firewood.

Hansel and Gretel sometimes go off on a different path from their parents, but they always leave a trail of stones, so they can find their way home afterwards.

One day they forget their bag of stones. "I have an idea!" says Gretel. "Lets leave crumbs from this bread to leave a trail instead!"

But they discover the birds have eaten all the breadcrumbs and now they are lost!

They are tired, so they lie down under a tree to sleep for the night.

The next morning they carry on walking, and stumble upon a house made of sweets! They eat some, as they are hungry, but then they see an old witch.

Posted too soon!

The witch decides that Hansel looks tasty, so she locks him in a cage to fatten him up. Every day she goes to feel his finger to see if he is fat enough to eat, but he sticks a twig through the cage instead so the witch thinks he isn't fat enough yet. Meanwhile poor Gretel has to do all the housework.

One day the witch gets fed up of waiting. "We'll eat him anyway!" she says. She goes to open the oven to check it's hot enough, and Gretel gives her a big shove and slams the door.

Gretel releases Hansel from the cage.

In the house Hansel and Gretel find a chest full of jewels!

They set off with the chest of jewels.

As if by magic, they manage to find their way home and are reunited with their parents. "Look at all these jewels!" says the woodcutter. "We'll never have to forage for food again." And they all lived happily ever after!

Thank you, I love your Playmobil stories.

That was fun!

I'm admiring the scenery. Did you paint it yourself or is it part of Playmobil? The gingerbread house is fantastic with all of the candy canes around,and the baguettes made me laugh when I saw them. Fantastic!

These childhood stories were always a bit dark, but I never thought twice about them when I was a child. Hansel and Gretel was always a favourite.The demise of the witch was very tastefully done and age appropriate for the likes of the older reader. Ha ha!

Haha! My artistic skills don't extend that far. The scenery is made by Playmobil. It's one of 3 fairy tale sets produced by them in 2007. I managed to get this set second hand for a very reasonable price on eBay!

Playmobil Hansel and Gretel is much nicer than the one in the fairy tale book I had!

Stepmother taking the children into the woods to abandon them was much darker.

I actually think fairytales were/are really important and need to come back into popular consciousness. But that's a discussion for another thread! 🙂

This was really fun @SoMuchToBits! Thank you. I had a book of the Grimm brothers' fairytales when I was a child - quite grown up, with very vivid illustrations - which I really loved.

Congratulations to the Lowbeach Players for their excellent production!