Comments on: Breaking the Toy Addiction: How Do You Deal with Toy Overload?

By: bj

bj — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 07:02:31 +0000

Our two boys definitely hit toy overload this Christmas. The day after Christmas, our 4 year old pronounced that he “couldn’t find anything to play with” after opening dozens of gifts the previous day. Our instinct was to take away all of the toys he received. Is this wrong? How do you guys handle situations like this?

By: Annita

Annita — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:12:23 +0000

from a clutter-reducing-perspective, I am all for the give one take one…

But, there is always the option of NOT making the reduction of gifts the focus at all…

Some have said, children believe with their whole hearts in the Santa magic, the loads of toys made by elves, and somehow carried by sleigh all the way from the north pole and deposited under trees in homes everywhere in one short sleep. And it is this belief that drives the true spirit of wonder for this, the favorite holiday of any child.
If you can, give them all that you can, encourage other gift givers to do the same and let Santa make everything merry and bright. Children will learn all about the sad reality of poverty and economic downturns and scrooges all too soon.
When they are older, sadly wiser, they will not remember the toys you gave them. They will remember only one of the gifts you gave, the gift of Christmas magic, and it will inspire them to recreate the same, to be generous, to keep the spirit of belief alive for their own children.
When this age of awareness is upon them, parents can begin to cut back and give a reasonable amount of presents and your now enlightened child can turn on his/her own generosity and share with reckless abandon her own Santa stories and help perpetuate the magic of the season to the younger ones. This is the ultimate recycling of the biggest gift you have given them, the gift of sharing the spirit of the season.
If you can, give piles of presents, make the magic. They grow up so fast.

By: R

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:53:46 +0000

My children are 11 & 9. I have asked that G-parents donate to their college funds, give cloths (school cloths, shoes, coats, etc…), or give books (reading/activity). I have also requested that only one toy be given. I have done one large “family gift” for Christmas. Toy rotation has also works. We put away all toys except three for a few weeks. Then we put those three away and get out three “new” toys. We donate old toys before getting new ones for B-day and Christmas as well.

By: Elisabeth

Elisabeth — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:29:56 +0000

I have to say, I love the ideas you guys are coming up with! Since my son is an only child (and the only grandchild on my husband’s side), he definitely has the tendency to think the world revolves around him. We try to talk to him a lot about sharing, and what it means to give, but I’m not sure how well he understands the concept sometimes! This year we decided as a family that we would buy presents for a boy in our community who would not receive them otherwise. It was a great thing to do both for the boy and for my son, who used money from his own piggy bank for a soccer ball that he purchased for this boy. It’s funny, I hesitated to do this at first, wondering if 5 was too young to tell my son that yes, there are kids in this world who have nothing, and who don’t even have food to eat all the time. It’s one of those big topics where kids have a lot of excellent questions, and I knew I wouldn’t have good answers. He was upset, but has been talking since then about how he wants to give every child in the world a toy. (Now he’s busy trying to figure out a way to make enough money to do that, and asked the other day if he was old enough to get a job!)

By: Laura

Laura — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 02:55:03 +0000

I’ve had to tweak the “one in, one out” rule a bit, to specify one in, “one of approximately the same size and shape and not broken” out. My sometimes too-clever son was trying to trade a single plastic worm (which he collects – go figure!) (not even a cubic inch) for a Rescue Rangers helicopter (about 2 cubic FEET!). With birthday and Christmas in the same month, this is a good housecleaning month for us!

By: Brie

Brie — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 22:28:42 +0000

I have recently been “cleaning/organizing/giving away/tossing in the trash” in the kids playroom about once a month. It feels so good to get rid of all those happy meal toys dating back from 1997 – my kids are savers of everything!

By: hernibs

hernibs — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:09:15 +0000

I’m a grandma now of six. When my girls were little I made a ruling ‘if it’s advertised on TV, we can’t afford it.’ I explained the concept of advertising and how the item cost is escalated to cover expensive ads. That worked pretty well for awhile. I also outlaw plastic in my house now and take it as a challenge to not buy plastic for my grand kids. We started them on coin sets for birthdays and that’s what they get from us each year. Some day they might appreciate the thought that went into that but I’m not sure they do now because they can’t play with them but they have other grandparents who do a good job at toy buying so I’ve stuck to my plan. Well, most of the time. For Christmas we came up with a plan to circumnavigate the too many Christmases with too many parents and grandparents, we spend a weekend with the whole family at a hot springs resort paid for by grandpa Santa. It’s early in December so as not to be too difficult to get everyone together. We draw names so each child gets one present. That’s it. Simple, fun and so far everyone is really enjoying the plan. Santa threatens to cancel the credit card each year but so far he’s been a good sport. Love your blogs.

By: Chaney

Chaney — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 16:43:47 +0000

We require that before each birthday and Christmas our children give back. We go through their toys and then each child takes the bag of toys to the local shelter or GoodWill. It really makes them feel proud.

By: bwgrants

bwgrants — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 16:12:07 +0000

I like the one toy in and one toy out concept. Thanks for the great idea.

One suggestion that my son and his good friends have come up with on their own is borrowing each others toys between play dates. It’s cool because they negitate which toys they will let the other borrow and, surprisingly enough, often end up trading their favorites so its good lesson in being generous and letting go.

By: nywndrwmn

nywndrwmn — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 15:11:57 +0000

My husband and I were discussing how sad it is that we throw gift cards back in forth between family members all year long for birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas etc. When we call to ask family members what they want and it takes them 3 days to let us know obviously their needs are met. Why spend so much money on people who already have so much when so many have so little? My husband and I do not have any needs (we have wants a mile long-but our needs are met) so we have asked family members to find a single mom, a less fortunate family or a widow to bless with the money they would have spent on us. We have asked the grandparents and family members to be careful with gift cards for the kids as many merchants will be closing some of their stores or their entire company after the holidays. If you are asked what you would like for Christmas that is one thing; To tell people what to give you is rude in my etiquitte book-a gift is a gift and we should appreciate (not necessarily like) what we are given. We have asked family members to consider giving our children the gift of an experience (horseback riding lessons, ymca indoor pool memberships, gymnastics class, even less expensive things like promises to go to a new park a certain number of times or skiing for the day etc) this way they can experience the gift all year long or for a few months instead of enjoying the toy for a day or even a week. It will also create a memory which is what Christmas is all about right? Remembering why Jesus was born, remembering family traditions etc. Plus an experience keeps them active and healthy which is hard to do in the winter here in the northeast. I challenge all of you to find someone to bless this Christmas-do it anonymously if you can. Hope you all have a Very Merry Christmas and a Safe and Happy New Year!