Are You Organized Enough For Santa?

The Holiday season is coming soon! Are you ready for the mountain of new toys about to arrive in your kid’s rooms?

Now is a great time to take stock of your child’s toys to make room for the new toys that will be coming into your home and make the holidays less stressful than they already are.

Whether they have been naughty or nice, kids receive a lot of toys during the holiday season. Many toys are abandoned right after the holidays and left at the bottom of a toy box or closet as your child quickly outgrow certain toys or is so overwhelmed with the volume that they simply get frustrated.

Or it could be that the item just didn’t hold their interest. All kids have their go-to toys and many have toys that are no longer required. Here is how to get your child’s rooms organized for the toy windfall.

Broken toys

These are the easiest to deal with. We all have them. Toys that are broken but were never dealt with at the time and now reside at the bottom of the toy box (which, by the way, is the worst way to organize and store toys). Out they go! Even those toys with critical missing parts that you think just may turn up………it’s time to discard those as well to make room for the new stuff.

Out with the old

With toddlers and younger children it’s easy to go through the toys and make the decisions yourself. You may want to separate the toys into categories and then separate those into toys you will toss, toys you will donate and toys you will store for later (visiting children, more children, special treats for sick days, etc.). Now is a great time to donate to your favourite thrift store so there are toys available to those in need.

Get the kids involved

Older kids like to be involved and will want a say in what decisions are made with their “stuff”. It’s only fair and sets a good example of respect. Have them start with choosing the toys they no longer like or play with. It often helps to separate the toys into categories and then have them pick their top 5 from each category. Explain to them that some of their toys are no longer appropriate as they have grown, and space is needed to accommodate the new toys that are sure to come their way.

Your children can also help to take the donations to the donation center to see what happens to them and how they have helped others. Donation centers love to receive toys before the holidays to help out those that need the toys as holiday gifts.

Plush = dust

Those plush toys are nice and there is nothing wrong with having a few on hand, but they really are dust collectors and magnets for dust mites (YUCK!). Unless you are willing to clean them at least once every couple of months, try to keep the quantity to just 4 or 5 absolute favourites for space, allergy and health reasons.

Gain some insight

As you sift through the toys and work with your kids you’re going to find out what type of toy they now like and perhaps what exact toy they would love to have. This information will come in handy when Grandma and Grandpa ask what they want or need for gifts. It should also help to reduce the number of toys they receive that they just won’t use.

Take stock of your storage

This is also a great time to determine if your child requires any additional storage space for toys or if the storage system you use is still workable for you and them. Make sure you have enough clear plastic bins to store the small toys so they don’t end up in the bottom of a toy box and never used. In fact, I recommend you discard the toy box entirely. If you insist on keeping it, then only one category of item should live in the toy box. For example, many clients use a toy box for a dress-up chest, so all the costumes live in that box.

Now is the perfect time to start paring down the toys before the chaos known as the holiday season sets in. As professional home organizers in Toronto and the York Region area, ClutterBGone and our organizing elves are ready to travel across the GTA to help you get organized for the holidays. Contact us now to learn more about how ClutterBGone can take the stress out of the holiday season.