It’s Day 20 of 31 Days Of Decluttering In December! It’s the last day of school before the kids go on break at our house. Therefore, it’s time to do the decluttering challenge I’ve been dreading the most! Today’s challenge is decluttering the toys! If you do not have kids, they are grown up, or you have done this recently, your task is to wrap 10 more presents as Christmas is 5 days away! (Although I know many of you Grandma’s who probably have toys that the Grandkids don’t play with that you could go through and donate to others!)
As the Christmas countdown continues, the reality of the explosion of toys to come is also becoming more real each day. My kids were blessed with grandparents that love to buy them what they want. They love doing it, and I know they get real joy over this. The best part is they understand space is limited and as the kids grow out of the toys, they are fine with donating them in order to keep things from becoming a jungle around here.
I really like the 1 in 1 out rule when it comes to decluttering. (As one item comes into the house, one item needs to leave the house.) So in my case, even if the kids only got one toy, which they will be blessed with far more than that, that would be 5 toys. I think that should probably be multiplied by at least 6 so that is at least 30 toys from our house need to go!
Here are a few tips for decluttering toys:
- Do not get rid of their favorite toys even if you hate them. Kids are much more likely to be generous weeding out things they don’t like to play with. If you get rid of the things they love, they are going to be suspicious and not want to get rid of anything after that.
- If it sits on the shelf and never gets played with, it’s time to go!
- If your kids are old enough, include them in the process. My kids are still young and it never fails that as I’m putting the unused toys in the bags to donate, they decide they are the best toys around. This is a problem because after that, no toys go in the bag and I have an even bigger mess than I had to begin with! As they get older, I think it’s great to teach them generosity and giving by letting them decide on what they like or don’t like. (Just be prepared, they may not find your She-Ra Princess Of Power doll nearly as cool as you did when you were a kid!)
- You don’t have to keep the toys from when they were a baby! If your kids have developmentally outgrown them, you can let them go! I know there’s a lot of guilt over “Mom gave them this” or “Aunt Sally bought them that.” However, I highly doubt these people gave them the gifts with the intention of you keeping the toys until your kids are 60 years old.
- If stuffed animals are a problem at your house, consider giving them to local firemen. I know in my area these can be donated to children who have lost their toys in a fire. I also know of a school in my area that uses the really nice ones for prizes for an after school program. Be creative. It’s fun to bless others. I know after I explained to the twins how kids whose toys burned up in a fire were getting some of their stuffies, they actually went and found some more. Kids have great hearts!
- Remember there are options besides just donating, you can also sell them or choose to keep the best of the best but to store them away. Also, if they toy is broken, just throw it away. No child wants to receive something that someone else already broke.
I’m excited to know what toys you find to declutter today! I’m looking forward to your comments or link ups! If you want to link up, snap a picture and meet back at 6 CST.
Here are the previous challenges in this series:
We’ll definitely be doing this today. Good luck.
You too! My kids have WAY too many toys so I’ll definitely need the luck! 🙂