We went to the home of some friends who were grandparents some years ago and it was just a few days before Christmas. When we walked into the living room, there stood a huge and beautifully decorated tree. Under the tree and literally covering about 4ft in circumference on the floor, were piles upon piles of gifts. We couldn't believe it. We were totally speechless. We wondered what kids could do with just so much stuff in 3 months let alone one magical day.
OK, so we can't stop grandparents and significant others' compulsive urge to go crazy with gift-giving at Christmas time, but how can we cope and manage the huge influx of toys?
Here are some suggestions:
Before Christmas
Sit down with your kids and decide which of their old toys they are willing to give away and which they wish to keep. Have your children go with you to give their old toys to some organization or to give to some play group as their act of giving. This will help them understand and enjoy the gift of giving.
Put old toys the kids want to keep into a 'time capsule' where, every three months, they can swap them out. Decide on and keep to x number of toys out at a time.
On Christmas Day
Put some gifts in their bedrooms to open for when they first wake up. (When they finally get to sleep after the anticipation of Santa coming, they always program their internal clocks to awake at some ungodly hour. We all did it). Just make sure the gifts you leave in their room are noiseless and do not need your instructions to get them going!
If you have numerous gifts from different sources, instead of giving all the presents out at once, how about letting your kids open some in the morning, some after lunch time and the remainder in the early evening. This way they will get to enjoy each gift more than just tearing the paper, taking one glance at them and then reaching for another.
Teach your kids to read any accompanying cards or tags that are on the gifts before opening the presents. If they are too young to read you could do this until they are able to do it for themselves, thus establishing a tradition of respect and gratitude.
General toy management suggestions:
Only make available a certain number of toys at any given time so you don't lose sight of the beds in your children's rooms.
Show your kids how to look after their toys. They need to know how to care for fragile toys and how to maintain mechanical or technological toys.
If you see your child mistreating a gift, put it away for some time and only reintroduce it when the child agrees to care for it appropriately. For example, if they leave a bicycle out in the front yard where it could be stolen or they leave a skateboard in a place where someone could trip over it and injure themselves, remove it and tell your child why they must show more care and consideration. This will teach them to be responsible for their possessions.
Provide storage space or bins where all of their current toys can be kept in an orderly fashion and teach your kids from a very early age how to pick up and store them. Once you have order established it needs to be your kids' role, not yours, to keep their rooms and play areas tidy and to put all their toys away.
Written by Sally and Brian Burgess
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