The Annual Scrooge

Jim Carrey as Scrooge

Scrooge is a verb in my house. It is the pre-Christmas cleaning out of the bounty of Christmas Past.  As a Catholic who holds her duty to others very dear (and as a mom who has to clean up the accumulations of daily life) I know that holding on to too much stuff is harmful in so many ways. Everyone knows intuitively, but must be reminded periodically that belongings beyond those that give us a certain level of comfort become a distinct discomfort as they pile up and create messes. More importantly if we have too much we create within us a poverty of charity while building up a wealth of selfishness. With that in mind, before the Christmas onslaught, each toy gets its worth measured: will it do more good to my children or will it do more good donated to someone else? This year there is an added incentive of living in less than 1000 square feet with a family of seven. I simply must make room.

Here's how it works, if you are interested in taking this on for yourself.

Find a good time to do it
We make it a part of the Christmas cleanup before the decorations go up. Before we dust or vacuum, we begin. It takes a total of 45 minutes to an hour, and yes, the kids help. Sort of. More on that later.

If this is too much to add to the preChristmas rush, perhaps it is something you can do around Thanksgiving. Maybe after shopping on Black Friday (or instead of), you can fit an hour in to accomplish this.

Don't be afraid of the mess
I take all the toys down and sort them into various piles: stuffed stuff, dollies, cars, puzzles, artsy, imaginative play, Legos, etc. The kids will help you put things away after you are done. Some items, like my daughter's dolly that she carries with her everywhere or my son's math manipulatives are going to be kept and are complete and need no sorting, so they don't go into the pile. They stay on the shelf.

Check yourself! If you have so much stuff that this task will create a bigger pile in any room than you have floorspace for, pick one room and sort the toys in that room alone. You may need to do what my husband and I had to: reasses how much stuff each child really needs. We found that we had (and still have) too many belongings and began repeating this process through the year. Lent is a great time (see my 40 Bags in 40 Days) to downsize a bit.

At each birthday, too, before the new toys go into the room, the honored child helps me count them and then goes and finds that number of toys he or she is willing to give to a poor child who has none. Even my most acquisitive child is happy to make such a trade while basking in the birthday bounty. Timing is everything.

Sorting
This is the part that daunts a person. It shouldn't. Just get in there and do it. If you only donate one item and you've tossed out three broken items, fine. You've made some room. Kick back and celebrate. The process itself is good for the soul. Like any skill, with practice you get better at it. Eventually, you may even find yourself not buying an item before it ever becomes a part of your donate pile because you are in the habit of really thinking about how it is used.

• All unfixable broken items get tossed immediately.
• Sets get restored. 
• Distract the kids: I pull a few toys out of the pile that are old favorites, they we are keeping, and that haven't been played with for awhile and send the children to their rooms to enjoy them while I take stock. Coloring in another room (unsupervised) works well, too, if you are a risk taker and plan on painting soon.
• Put items to be donated directly into the trunk while the children are distracted. I make many trips out to the van in order to avoid making a pile that will, inevitably, be picked through and debated. If I feel bad about donating something, I just don't. If I'm doubtful, I'll ask the child. For the most part, it's my decision. I don't want to be all day at this. Just an hour or so.

Dusting and restoring

Everything is now ready to go back onto the shelves and into the bins. There should be less, even if there is a little less. About 10 minutes before you are finished, have the kids help by dusting off those empty shelves.

Next, I use bins and baskets. In the kids' rooms they have bins for toys. I put toys away that I want put away in a neat and sorted manner (like puzzles and games) The kids can dump things into the bins. Even the toddler can put toys away.

Here's a picture of my donation decision making process, if you'll find it helpful.

Donated:
We have two shape sorting toys. They both provide the same learning experience. Since one makes noise, that's the one that's donated. I hate toys that play with themselves.

Not Donated:
We have two alphabet puzzles that I kept. One has a picture of the an animal that starts with the letter sound beneath the letter. The other has the lower case letter beneath the capital letter. They both are worked on a different skill. I use them for school. They both stay.

Donated:

We have two dress-up toys. One is a little bear with outfits that fit together like a puzzle. One is a princess who has various outfits that are magnetized and stick on her. Puzzles win out over gizmos and since I am de-emphasizing the whole princess thing with my daughters, the bear stays.


Not donated:

The tea sets, Lincoln Logs, and dollies that made it safely through last year's sort. They are played with at least once a week.

By the way, my toy bins have lids. I find that when the bins are so stuffed that the bins no longer close, it is time to Scrooge again. Even if the calendar says it is July!

Too much of our wealth winds up here.

The static of stuff

After we'd moved from our house to the trailer, we had some excess stuff. We knew that some of our things were worth saving and making room for, like old photographs; some things were nice, but not nice enough to tempt us to squeeze it into our smaller quarters, like our queen sized bed and headboard; other items, like baby gear, we were keeping just in case, but we weren't currently using; and some things we no longer had a use for, if we ever actually did, we were eager to be rid of. We looked at the price of storage, looked at the amount of stuff that we didn't want to put in our trailer, and determined that by the time we were ready to build our house we could buy new or used replacement items for the amount of money it would cost us to store it all. And then some. We needed to cull the pile, even if we did wind up paying for storage on what we eventually kept. That meant we had to ditch anything that wasn't truly sentimental or, like winter clothing, soon-to-be useful. We know of only two ways to pitch stuff without filling a landfill, charity and holding a yard sale.


"Easy Money" is an Oxymoron

We began with charity. We called anyone with children younger than our youngest and asked if they wanted any gear or clothing. Then we called newlyweds and young people just starting out to see if they wanted our excess furniture items. With the first culling done, we set the date for a yard sale and promptly missed a key press deadline. This oversight automatically meant we'd have to have another sale or we'd barely break even on the cost of our babysitting and our other advertising.

The first day of our first yard sale started early. The babysitter arrived before dawn and we left the kids still sleeping in their beds to go to our old house where we'd hold the sale. We pulled items out of the house and garage, arranged, and priced everything. We were glad to see our first customer--she meant we were finally able to rest and catch our breath. By the time that long and hot day was over, with the exception of a dryer and one cabinet, none of our larger (and therefore heavier) items had sold. It all had to be hauled back into the garage until the next day. None of the heavy stuff sold the next day either, so it got hauled onto a truck and off again to store in my mother's garage until the next sale.

Memories Are Not Dependent on Stuff

I was misty eyed as I arranged my baby buggy that first day. It had pushed not only all of my five children, but all the babies I'd fostered, too. So many memories. I mused that it would be hard to sell it to a stranger. When it didn't sell that first day, it was with much less emotion that I wheeled it back into the garage. When it didn't sell by the second day and I had to put it on the trailer to haul to my mother's house for the next set of sale days, I found a new emotion taking the place of wistful fondness: annoyance. By the time it actually sold in a bundle with nearly the rest of my baby gear to a visibly pregnant woman, I was relieved to be rid of it and happy that she could use it.

Clothes, Clothes, and More Clothes!

Speaking of babies, they have a tendency to outgrow other stuff, too. I had boxes upon boxes of clothes in each size for each gender. Most were given as hand-me-downs or as gifts. Only a few items we'd purchased ourselves. Here's what I learned after only bringing a fraction of our clothing to the trailer: you only need as many clothes as it will take you to get to the next washday. Everybody needs a few very nice things, a few nice-ish things, and enough play clothes to handle the spills and thrills between washdays. We need a few jammies, a jacket, a sweater or two, and a heavy coat with some cold gear. In other words, not a closetful. You know what happens when you have too many clothes? Laundry. It piles up. Why wash when you've got at least another two weeks worth of clothes to go through before something has to be done?

Clothing has been a really drastic downsize for us. We've got these tiny, 70s era closets that would barely fit the linens of most modern homes. Now, my three girls are in one big dresser and they share a closet. My boys are in two dressers (with room leftover for some toy storage) and one closet. My husband and I, with our bigger clothes, are also sharing a single small dresser and small closet.

Stuff is Stuffing


Downsizing has taught me something about stuff--it is a burden. It really weighs you down. Mindlessly holding onto things, which is a danger for homeowners with plenty of storage, clutters up your life. I sifted through it all and found out I'd not used some items for years. Some things I'd never used at all. Either I'd been given an item as a gift and I kept them out of guilt or I'd bought them and discovered I couldn't be bothered with it. How much money was tied up in what turned out to be junk? I got a pittance of the purchase price for my "treasures."  50% was high. How much of my wealth had gone home in other people's trucks over the course of two yard sales?

Now What?

Some things did not sell. The boxes of books, children's clothes and shoes will wind up on a boat to the orphanage in Uganda. The rest will go to the Goodwill Store or other local charity. I won't miss a single item. In fact, I dread having to load it all up again to get it all finally and completely out of my life.

Do I still desire beautiful things? You betcha. Do I have any desire to actually purchase anything? Not in the slightest. My plate is full. In fact it is overflowing.

Thanks, but no.