Gifts That Keep Giving- Part One

Early January brings the after-Christmas-toys-everywhere blues. As if it's not enough to ward off the dim Winter skies, the weariness of Holiday activity and removal of all the twinkle-lights.

But now, there are exactly 32,734 new little teeny ever so important toys sprinkled on the floor. This makes me anxious. My perfectionism kicks in, I don't want pieces to be separated from their home-toy. When we're talking about Legos, Playmobile, sigh. 32,734 pieces.

So this is what I've done this year. While my boys, who were very happily playing with ONE of the thousands of toys they've accumulated, were occupied, I snuck around the house and collected the new & overwhelming toys and have put them away. The new toys haven't been missed. I will give it a few weeks and then sneak one toy out and put it on a sleeping boys' bed so they can wake up to Christmas all over again.

Really, I think it's going to work! My boys have a million new things, and half a million old things (going through those too). They don't miss a thing yet.

Truthfully, the weeks sneaking up to Christmas this year were painful. The boys were living in such anticipation of all the excitement that lands on one day. It was a miserable time for them.

A day after Christmas, I sat visiting with my Mother-In-Law and noticed that my cranky-anticipating-boys were happily off playing make believe with NO toys at all.

I'll be darned if they weren't just relieved.

...and I just made it better. I put away more than half of the gobs of toys, PEACE again.

Peaceful home, peaceful home....