I came across this genius idea to help children learn to share and learn to declutter at the same time.  Such a simple idea, but I think you’ll agree it has merit.  Every day, put a donation item in a box which you deliver to a local charity before Christmas.  Your children can choose toys and games they no longer play with to give to children who may not have many nice toys.  Keep in mind that this exercise of going through their belongings is hard.  Making decisions is hard.  Giving up their stuff is hard.  Young children will need help sorting and organizing their toys.  When they recognize that a toy hasn’t been played with recently, remind them that another child will enjoy it.  You can mention that they will be receiving new toys which will need a place in their closet.  Keeping the donation box out of sight of young children will help them forget about the toys they are giving up.

This idea is from a local company who offers professional organizing services to households and businesses.  I enjoy their blog, which is where I got this gem of an idea.  They suggested starting on December 1^st as you would start an Advent calendar.  Then delivering the box to a local charity on the 24^th of December.  But I feel this doesn’t give the charity time to distribute it to needy families.  Also, used toys may not fit the requirements of many charities who are providing new Christmas toys to poor families.  So I have tweaked their idea just a bit.

I think starting on Thanksgiving is an ideal time to start kids thinking about how much they have and what they no longer need that would help other children.  I think that adding items daily for two weeks is probably more doable than trying to do it for three weeks at an already hectic time of year. Starting at Thanksgiving and completing the box in two weeks means you’ll be finished at the end of the first week of December which makes more sense to me.  I also think that once you start on a purge, it may just be easier to finish in a day or two and put all the items in a box at once.  Daily sorting might wear out everyone involved!  Take this idea and make it fit your family.  Instead of giving used toys to a charity for Christmas distribution, perhaps a better idea for used toys is to deliver them to a charitable thrift store where poor parents will be able to buy good used toys cheap.  Many non-profit thrift stores support worthy causes such as drug rehab programs.  (My personal opinion is that Goodwill should be your last choice, but even they do good by employing people albeit at low wages.  Their profits have made the CEO very wealthy.)

Here is a happy-ending story written by a professional organizer who was assisting a mom to organize her children’s play space.

“Once they understood that their toys would be going to other kids who didn’t have any themselves, they jumped right in. They managed to purge all of the “younger” kid’s toys that they had outgrown, and even got rid of some favorite toys that they had just become bored with. At the end of the day, they had an organized playroom with even more space to play and I have a hunch that, this Christmas, they will enjoy their gifts even more than ever.”  http://organizersnw.com/giving-and-getting-decluttered/