The original part 3 in this series was supposed to be organizing toys- making sure that every toy you (as a parent) give has a place, BUT the fact is that military life has gotten away with me. Now that we are more than a month out from Christmas, I am ready to move on. The other aspect is that since the ups and downs of normal military life have taken my focus away from my website lately, I do not want to write a lot of lengthy catch up articles. I will tackle the topic of toy organization at some undetermined point in the future when my life isn’t feeling as chaotic, but as for now it is hard to write on organization when my life is not feeling so organized. I do want to pass on one last tidbit that I learned this Christmas:
Take toys out of packaging before wrapping!
There is one major note with the straight off the bat…this tip only works for the parents of the child receiving the gift or items that are not returnable. I am putting this note in because if any other well intentioned gift giver does this and the child either has the item or for some reason the items will not work for them, then the gift is wasted as non-returnable.
Here’s the scoop for parents…After years of watching my older daughter open gifts that she could not play with right away and me spending hours on Christmas morning (or her birthday) wrestling toys out of their packaging, I thought that there must be a better way. The idea of taking toys out of their packages ahead of time had crossed my mind prior, but I decided not to do it as I was afraid that it would look like less gifts under the tree. This year, I had a talk with my older daughter on whether she thought it was a good idea for me to have all of my toddler’s gifts ready for play. We decided that it would be a lot more exciting for my toddler to actually be able to play with the toys that she opened. My older daughter was okay with the fact that it may look like less under the tree. She even suggested wrapping some of the individual parts separate to make more stuff to open. Even with wrapping some items separate, I still used a lot less wrapping paper than had I wrapped the gifts in their packaging which also made me feel good in a green aspect.
A note worthy aspect to this is that you will still have to devote time to taking toys out of packaging. If you are wrapping for Christmas, I suggest that you do a little at a time as you buy the presents so that you are not backlogged with gift wrapping the night before Christmas. Even though it took me more time to wrap the gifts, it was well worth it on Christmas morning when I was able to watch my toddler open a gift and straight off enjoy playing with it. I definitely felt more like a participant in Christmas and it let the morning go a lot smoother. For us, the girls were able to take their time opening gifts and enjoying them rather than rushing through and having a pile of gifts that had to be taken out of the packaging before they could play.
The second noteworthy aspect is that as you are taking toys out of packaging ahead of time, you need to be careful in disposing of the packaging so that the gifts stay a surprise. I had a reality check when I found myself surrounded by a mountain of packaging that somehow needed to make it to the curb without my children (especially my older daughter) noticing. I found a plain box to pack away the packaging until garbage day and then set it out with my recycling bin.
So, while there is still 10 and a half months until Christmas, this tip is one that can be used for birthdays and other gift giving occasions throughout the year.
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