Toys

FOR CHILDREN, the sight of toys under their Christmas tree is one of the earliest memories of fundamental joy. The sight is a once-a-year magical promise that they will always be given what they want, and will never know deprivation. And that's why there's probably nothing sadder than the trees barren of toys. Every year, too many children experience that deprivation. This year is no exception. In fact, this year, more children than ever may be deprived of Christmas' promise.

"I know it's a puzzle, but what does it do?" "You want me to read a book? That's no fun. " "Do we have to go to Aunt Aggie's Christmas Day? They don't have Play Station over there. " The responses above confirm what any parent on his way to camp out in hopes of scoring a Furby already knows: We've fallen down in this age of technology, and we can't get up. Or rather, we can't get back to a time when kids actually played with toys, rather than watched toys play for them.

Carrying good intentions motorcyclists set out from Columbus Boulevard yesterday as part of the Toys for Tots Bike Run. Thousands of bikers participated in the annual trek, transporting toys to kids at Children's hospital of Philadelphia in West Phila.

This week's Adopt-a-Pet at the Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society is Alice, a 3-year-old American Staffordshire terrier mix. Alice is friendly and gets along with dogs and cats. She enjoys small playgroups and chew toys. To adopt Alice, contact PAWS, 100 N. 2nd St., at 215-238-9901. When inquiring, please provide her tag identifier, which is "Clinic. " A $75 fee includes sterilization, vaccines and microchipping.

They didn't know little Cecilia Cichan, but after yesterday, they consider her a friend. Today, they'll play with the toys she gave them. Stuffed bears, dogs, tigers and mice, Barbie dolls, Cabbage Patch Kids and baby dolls flooded the playroom at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in North Philadelphia. The toys were only a fraction of gifts from Cecilia, the lone survivor of a plane crash on Aug. 16 in Detroit that killed 156 people, including her immediate family.

With Christmas one month away, auction companies next week will conduct four sales specializing in two holiday-gift categories: toys and jewelry. The first toy sale will be at 5:30 p.m. Monday at West Hanover Township Fire Hall three miles east of the Harrisburg suburb of Linglestown. There Tom and John Golden will offer a variety of dolls and stuffed animals, including a 1962 "bubble-cut" Barbie and a 1906 F.A.O. Schwarz bear. The bear from the New York toy store is one of a quantity of ursine items to be offered.

It's often said that toys are designed to appeal as much to adult buyers as to the child-recipients of the playthings. When it comes to techno toys, that grownup appeal goes double. At the recent American Toy Fair in New York, this grownup gadgeteer was regularly inspired to take out the charge card and buy-buy-buy, entranced by the latest in sound and vision, mechanical and computerized toys. However, the Toy Fair is "wholesale only," and many of the products introduced there by manufacturers won't actually be available until spring or summer.

Those cartoon shows that are no more than animated versions of kids' toys are "robbing children of better programming" and making them more aggressive, according to a Harvard developmental psychologist. Ronald G. Slaby, of Harvard's Center for Research on Children's Television, said in the June 13 issue of TV Guide that he feels there is a "unique interaction between television violence and a set of toys that are marketed and readily available to the children for possible aggressive play and outright agressive behaviour.

Don't give your children toys. Give them things they can play with. The force of this home truth struck me between the eyes after the holidays, as those lovely, expensive toys we had lavished upon our 6- and 9-year-old "mystery beings" were discarded in favor of - things. What sort of things? Watch your children at play. What do they do? Ours play-act. That is, they recreate the events of the day, the week, the month and most often the hour, on their own terms. We went to a Broadway play, a big splurge, Cats.

Now may not be the time to worry about Christmas shopping for the kids. But if you think the price of stuffing a stocking in December is outrageous, consider the prospects of a sale next Saturday in the Baltimore suburb of Timonium, Md. Starting at 10 a.m., Richard Opfer will conduct a toy auction at which a 40-year-old tin representation of Popeye the Sailor in an airplane is expected to sell for $5,000 to $7,000. The sale is one of four over the next eight days that also will offer bidders new plants and old books.

DEAR ABBY: We have a grandson who is 4 and very much a "princess boy. " He likes girl toys and dresses and doesn't like any of his boy toys. He's an adorable little boy and we love him to pieces. His parents don't accept this behavior, and I'm afraid it will affect him now and in the future. How would you handle this? We don't say anything to his parents because they are pretty much in denial. - Worried Grandma DEAR WORRIED: If he were my grandchild I'd talk with the parents.

People hustling through 30th Street Station Thursday morning should be greeted by something completely unexpected - a 16-foot-high fiberglass and metal sculpture of a cartoony seated figure with its hands over its face. There will be something vaguely familiar about the figure. Could it be the three-fingered hands? The white gloves? The knobby earlike fringe around the head? The bare pate? All of the above speak to the world of cartoons in general and Disney characters in particular.

LOS ANGELES - After a nine-month delay, "G.I. Joe: Retaliation" deployed to the top spot at the box office. The action film starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Bruce Willis and Channing Tatum as the gun-toting military toys brought to life marched into the No. 1 position at the weekend box office, earning $41.2 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. "Retaliation" opened Wednesday at midnight, which helped bring its domestic total to $51.7 million. Paramount postponed the sequel to 2009's "G.I.

A LINE OF action figures based on the characters from "Django Unchained" have recently gone on sale ($34.99 retail), but Najee Ali wants them taken off the market. Ali, director of the advocacy group Project Islamic Hope, in conjunction with other Los Angeles black community leaders, called for the removal of the toys and said they're "a slap in the face of our ancestors" that "trivializes the horrors of slavery. " But do they really? More than the film itself? Did the action figures made for Quentin Tarantino 's last film, "Inglourious Basterds," trivialize the horrors of the Nazis?

PREVAILING winter weather conditions have forced the postponement of Friday's basketball game between Temple and visiting Detroit, part of the Chevrolet Gotham Classic series. Poor weather conditions in the Midwest, combined with wind conditions in Philadelphia, prevented the Titans from being able to safely travel to Philadelphia for the game. The game will be rescheduled for a later date. The Owls (9-2) will next play Monday, when they host Bowling Green at 2 p.m. at the Liacouras Center.

REV. ADAN MAIRENA is not your typical Santa. He wears jeans and sneakers, has a pit bull named Shadow and uses a red Dodge Durango as his sleigh. Mairena, of West Kensington Ministry at Norris Square Presbytery of Philadelphia, has been making his rounds throughout the North Philadelphia neighborhood and Camden since Sunday delivering toys to those most in need. "I'm just going to put [the toys] in my truck and be the North Philly Pancho Claus," Mairena said. "I know there are children in this neighborhood that this will bring a little joy. " The Episcopal Academy and the Matarazzo & Milici Group, a dental office in South Philly, donated 500 toys, blankets and clothes this year.

EVEN WITH one week left until Christmas, I refuse to panic like those other parents. You know the ones. They're at Toys "R" Us right now, having sneaked out of work to buy little Johnny that Lego set he demanded. I've seen such parents engage their shopping rivals in WWE-style matches. It's the same every time. The toys run out, the coats come off, and a teenage temp with a Justin Bieber face tattoo gets on the P.A. system. "Security to aisle three," she says in a disinterested tone.

Dan Weiss is a trusting guy. For more than 20 years during the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, he has put a bin outside his Chestnut Hill Cheese Shop to collect toys for the Marine Corps charity Toys for Tots. Many nights, he left it out for after-hours donations. "I guess I was looking for the brighter side of humanity," said Weiss, whose father started the business in 1962. Until last weekend, humanity had never let him down. Every morning, Weiss would arrive to open his store and the bin would be right outside the front door where he'd left it the night before, usually piled higher with toys.

IT IS NO SECRET the 76ers struggle with teams that possess strong inside games. That was evident once again Saturday in a tough loss in Chicago. The fear Tuesday was a repeat performance as the visiting Minnesota Timberwolves own the game's best rebounder in Kevin Love and surround him with rugged Nikola Pekovic in the starting lineup. That backup guards Jose Barea and Alexey Shved were the dynamics in Minnesota's lopsided, 105-88 victory was as unexpected as it is concerning. The tiny Barea, generously listed at 6-foot, sped off the bench and contributed 11 points and 10 assists, while rookie Shved scored 17. Barea simply got wherever he wanted all night.

In a campaign-style visit to a Montgomery County toy factory Friday, President Obama warned that Republicans in Congress were on the verge of giving millions of Americans a "lump of coal . . . a Scrooge Christmas" by refusing to renew the lower Bush-era tax rates for those making less than $250,000 a year. The GOP is holding tax cuts for the middle class "hostage" to preserve them for the rich, he argued, adding that as far as he is concerned, any negotiated deal to avoid the fiscal cliff must increase tax rates on the wealthy.