Barbie Games and Gifts

I’m having a hard time giving Barbie games as gifts these days. It’s a strange phenomenon really, but it has less to do with the Barbie games and more to do with the girls I’d be giving the gifts to. For years I was buying gifts for three and four-year-old girls. In that age group, it seems like you can’t go wrong with a princess Barbie doll. But then something changes and it’s hard to tell if the kindergarten girls are still into Barbie games or not. Some have moved on and others are still there, but it’s always a gamble.

Not only are some girls not as thrilled with a Barbie game, the parents of these girls can be a bit hesitant to be excited about a Barbie as well. The connotation of the Barbie games with a ditzy blond and high fashion can be a bit much to swallow now that we all want our children to grow up strong and secure in their own right. Of course, Barbie games aren’t going to cause problems for anyone, and I still go for a pretty Barbie toy when I can, but there’s always that hesitation that makes me stop and think about what I’m doing.
 

Barbie Games at the Mall

There used to be a toy store inside the mall. When I was younger, I’d walk around the mall with my friends looking in the various stores for ways to spend my measly allowance. I’d find goodies in the inexpensive accessory stores and there was always something interesting to buy in the novelty shops, but my favorite way to spend some money in the mall was always the toy store. It was there that I could easily get away with my love of Barbie Games.

Like all good toy stores, there was most certainly a pink aisle right down the middle of the store. On the pink aisle, you’d find all kinds of Barbie games. There was the original Barbie doll dressed in a swimsuit and the Barbie dolls dressed up in different occupations. You could find Barbie games for every purpose or occasion, and even though I felt too old to actually buy the Barbie games for myself, I was certainly not too old to wander down the aisle just checking out what was new and different. It’s a habit, I’ll admit, I’ll still have when I shop in any store that has one of the lovely pink aisles.

Playing Barbie Games after School

I like to watch my younger sister come home from school. She’s excited about learning and since she only has a few minutes of homework every evening, she’s able to spend plenty of time playing with her favorite toys – the Barbie games. I can sit at the table working on my homework for extended periods of time while she plays quite contentedly in the next room. The Barbie games make me smile because it’s nice to see the innocence that comes with the early years of school.

My little sister is like many young children. She’s young enough to enjoy school and not be frustrated by it. It’s all new to her and she loves her warm and friendly teacher who thinks of fun projects and experiments to do in class. She loves to dress up for classes and to carry her Barbie games lunch box. And when she gets home, she just picks right back up with the Barbie games she was playing the day before. While I’m happy watching her be happy, I’m also just a tiny bit jealous of how carefree she is playing – enjoying herself and totally free of anything that resembles stress. It’s a charmed life with her Barbie games and I find myself charmed by it as well.

Barbie Games in the Car

There are some great car games out there, but one of the best are Barbie games. There are Barbie games online, but the best Barbie games for the car are the ones that don’t require the internet. Fortunately, there are plenty of these out there. To play them, you need a laptop and a pad or pillow to put in her lap to be sure that the laptop doesn’t fall while driving. Load up the Barbie games on the computer and she can get right to work dressing up the dolls to suit her inspiration at the moment and creating stories.

The trouble with playing traditional games in the car is the movement. You can’t position a mouse perfectly in the moving car, but with Barbie games you don’t need to. The Barbie games are more drag and drop than anything else – moving clothing onto a doll base in order to dress the doll to your liking. It’s easy to drag something around on the screen, even if you’re on a bumpy road. So long as she’s not likely to get car sick, having something to work on that’s not television or movies is a nice way to engage her mind during the drive.
 

Barbie Games Tempt Me Again

I have two boys who simply aren’t interested in Barbies. With those boys, I’ll never have a chance to accumulate Barbie games. I won’t get to dress the little Barbies in the way I did when I was a little girl. I have grown to accept this loss of Barbie games from my household, but the clever people at Mattel managed to tempt me recently. I almost bought myself a Barbie doll.

Actually, it was a Jacob doll, but they are made by Barbie and part of the Barbie games collection. I am impressed with how well the Twilight series have done and thought about buying the doll just for fun. I could display it at work for laughs, but at the same time I’d get my Barbie games fix that I just can’t get when I’m playing with all the boys in my household. I will say that I didn’t buy Jacob or Edward for that matter. But I did think about it for more than a few seconds. Barbie games are definitely still tempting.  

Barbie Games Are Getting Classy

A quick stroll down the pink aisle recently made me realize how classy many of the Barbie games have become. There have always been the basic Barbies in their cheerful swimsuits ready for clothing and designs. But with the new black packaging, the elegant line of classy Barbie games impressed me. They were more adult looking than the pink packaged Barbie games.

If I could hazard a guess, I believe Mattel is targeting little girls with their pink boxed Barbies. The princesses and original Barbies in swimsuits and the like are very popular with the little ones. But to reclaim some of the older girl crowd, the company needed something different. The black boxed Barbies are that different. The dolls are sleeker and more sophisticated – just the sort of thing that older girls would be looking for in a fashion doll.

Barbie Games Are Immortal

Stop for a moment to think about all of the different toys that have survived over the years or seen a resurgence. Transformers, GI Joes, Strawberry Shortcakes and even the Smurfs have all popped up on toy shelves and they are all great fun. But among these only two types of toys are truly immortal – they will always be popular and always be around. These two are the toy cars and Barbie games. Why are these so timeless? Because they aren’t timeless at all.

Transformers and Strawberry Shortcake are essentially the same toys they were a generation ago when we played with them as children. The Barbie games a decade ago, however, are different from the games of today. And the Barbie games from two generations ago are night and day. The dolls in Barbie games change over time and her fashions change even more. The only other product in the toy aisles that has the same effect are the toy cars that take on the shape and design of popular cars of the decades.