Friday, December 30, 2011

out with the old

A couple of days before Christmas I decided it was time for another cupboard purge.  I asked each child to take a good look in their room and bring out 10 things they no longer wanted (either outgrown, broken, whatever).  The dancing queen came out a few minutes later with a plastic bag full of half used colouring books and a pile of felt tip pens.  I followed behind and filled a few more bags....The little engineer proceeded to remove every single thing from his bedroom and put it in the middle of the lounge floor, announcing that he didn't want any of it, and anyway he would be getting plenty of new things for Christmas.

It took most of the afternoon, but we sorted through it all.  Now I'm a less is more kind of person, and was amazed that there was really anything to be thrown out, but we managed to put together 6 banana boxes of stuff - for rubbish, recycling, donating and storing.  Extraordinary!

It also threw into the sharp relief, the childrens expectations that there was ''plenty more where that came from''.  Come Christmas day, there was actually little that came in - gifts had been carefully thought out and  included a minimal amount of ''stuff'' - and the children were more than happy with that.

What amazes me most though, is how I consider myself clutter free, junk free and as consumable light as I can be, and still we managed to find a carful of stuff no longer wanted.

1 comment:

Broot said...

we're in the middle of a purge, too. Whole house - not just the kids stuff!!