BlueBrixx Picnic Set 107418

BlueBrixx's Picnic is a BlueBrixx Play set built from 173 blocks, measuring 13.7 × 12.8 × 5.3 cm assembled — a table, a grill, a cool box, drinks, food, condiments and a lilac bush. Three figures: a man, a woman and a child. Accessories are removable. All decoration is printed; no stickers. Released September 2024.

Everyone was supposed to bring something

The word picnic comes from the French pique-nique, which appears in print in the seventeenth century, and it did not originally mean eating outdoors at all.

A pique-nique was a meal where each guest contributed a dish or paid a share — indoors, at a table, in company. The point was the shared cost rather than the grass. The term crossed to England after the Revolution with émigrés, where fashionable London society formed a Pic-Nic Society that met for exactly that kind of subscription supper.

The outdoor meaning arrived during the nineteenth century, along with railways, parks and the idea that fresh air was good for you. By the time the Victorians were finished with it, picnic meant a hamper under a tree and the contribution part had quietly disappeared.

The American potluck kept the original idea and dropped the word.

What a scene without a building does

Most BlueBrixx Play sets are structures. This one is a patch of ground with people on it, which is what a town layout usually lacks — somewhere between the buildings where something is happening.

In the BlueBrixx range

Sets 107419 (Sandbox), 107422 (Playground), 107420 (Flower Booth) and 107421 (Bakery) are the companion sets, all to the same scale.

Specifications

Pieces: 173 · Figures: 3 · Series: BlueBrixx Play · Removable accessories · No stickers
Model dimensions: 13.7 × 12.8 × 5.3 cm (5.4 × 5.0 × 2.1 in)