Time For Pre-Holiday Decluttering

Yes it is that time of year again! Toys from all over the world will begin filling your home, as if your children needed more! If you are not prepared, the day after Christmas you will find boxes stacked along the walls of your child’s home with no place to put them. But if you start now, on Christmas night you will have a place for everything.

My dad used to be a salesman for a church design company, he says if your church is 80% full it is time to build more space. I say if your kids toy storage space is 80% full it is time to weed out! You may find after Christmas you will have to weed again.

Here are some quick tips to help you reach your goal with little effort:

1) Involve Your Children: Explain to them what you are doing (Which is making room for all the NEW things to come). Ask them to help you choose some of the toys they do not want, or could bear to part with.

2) Use clean up time as the time to de-clutter: Give your children a box at clean up time, tell them that as they are cleaning if they pick up something they do not want anymore toss it in the box instead of putting it away. (You will be amazed at how much they do not want when they are putting things away. 🙂 ) Bonus: You are multi-tasking, because we all know the holidays are busy enough without having one more thing to do.

3) Keep two containers accessible. One labeled throw away, and one labeled give away. The nicer items (No marks, no tears, no cut doll hair) can go to an orphanage, or shelter. (Which is a great way to teach your children, first we give, then we receive.)
The easiest way to begin to get rid of things is start with the trashed items. Every little girl is going to get at least one new baby doll, and at least one new Barbie, so throw out the ones that have cut hair, marks, or are just torn down. Games with missing pieces, dried out play dough, and finger paints, toys with broken parts, coloring books that are full, throw it out!

3) Now you are ready to … Do a real shake down of the room. This is usually best when the children are not around. So if you can not do it any other time, convince Daddy to take the kids to Mcdonald’s for a couple of hours. With that said … you would be surprised at the Mcdonald’s toys, and the little “treasure chest” trinkets they have brought home from school that are hiding and cluttering up your space. Get rid of those things they are never going to miss, throw it away, and re-organize.

4) Remember the point is to create empty storage space. Once you have that, you are ready for the new inventory which will have a place, and not take up cluttered space for several weeks after Christmas.