Why I am giving away my kids toys before Christmas

A couple weeks ago I wrote a post about ‘How to put the meaning back in Christmas‘, but I have to be honest with you, I am struggling with Christmas this year! I am tired of the overabundance; every day I pick up my kids toys after they are randomly scattered around the house, and I get frustrated.

Why? Because they don’t get played with. My two middle daughters play Ana and Elsa all day – they color, they create, they imagine. They do not play with toys. My oldest son who is 9 plays with Legos, all day. He has a room in our attic that is filled with his Legos, he spends a lot of his time up there building.

My baby girl wants to be held all day, and when she is not being help she wants to be read to. Those toys that get scattered all around my house are only getting touched when they are getting scattered. Sometimes in a rare occasion, toys get brought out of the toy room and are played with. Most of the time it is blocks and Duplos; sometimes the barbies come out to play too.

I am frustrated – my kids have too much. And now with Christmas coming, I have had enough! I am so sick of spending money on things that my kids rarely use. So this year I want to buy meaningful gifts that I know they will enjoy the entire year.

In my last post I talked about a 3 part challenge – one part of this challenge was putting the focus back on being with family and friends. This was one part that I really wanted to focus on, so we decided this year to have a 3 gift Christmas.

Each of our children are getting only 3 gifts from us this year – in 3 categories. This helps us stay within budget AND be more meaningful with our gifts.

Here are the categories:

1. Something they want.
2. Something they need
3. Something religious or educational.

To give you an idea of how we did this – here are the gifts we decided to give everyone:

• 9 year old son – Lego set, Northface fleece, Lord of the Rings Trilogy book series.
• 5 and 3 year old daughters (they are getting the same thing because they fight over everything) – They are each getting a Step 2 Art Desk, 1 is getting an Anna dress and 1 is getting an Elsa dress, they are each getting a Crayola art kit and coloring books.
• Baby girl – Goodnight Moon Book, Small Foam Chair, and small farm toy.

So this week – I am doing something I thought I would never do.

I am getting rid of all of my kids toys. I am packing them up, storing some, and donating the rest. I will save a few of their favorites, but I am so sick of the mess and the overabundance of toys in my life.

I am deciding to focus on the holiday and people around me this season. We are getting rid of the toys and clutter, so we can free up more time to spend with family.

If you are struggling with trying to figure out how to plan your holiday out, then work on the 3 part challenge I shared in my previous post and check out this Holiday Planning Guide from Suntrust. In this planning guide you will learn more about how to plan a stress free holiday, how to save money on holiday travel, plus much more!  — Unfortunately, they’ve stopped offering this planning guide. Sorry 🙁

I highly recommend that you go back and read my post about ‘How to Put the Meaning Back into Christmas‘.

I want to encourage you that you can still be meaningful within your means. I am excited about this season in our life with less toys and clutter – and less stress! I hope you will join me in this 3 part challenge!