Containing the Toysplosian
If you have kids, especially if you have many kids (or in our case one for each weekday) the post-Christmas toy situation has reached critical mass by now. A first-world problem to be sure, but having more toys than space will eventually drive any parent mad.
You have to maintain your own equilibrium. One toy in, one toy out. Toss ‘em if their broken, pass them along to family or friends if you can, or donate them. Consider this invented but anecdotally supportable statistic about kids: 90% of play is done with 10% of their toys.
In the end we’ve done this to ourselves. By supporting cheap toys, letting our kids get sucked into the marketing of branded everything, and by thinking kids always need something new to keep them occupied.
So, while trying to start fresh by burning up the toys isn't an option, restoring the toy equilibrium is. But it’s not going to be easy.
Instead of Chinese water torture, it’s made in China products torture. Insert rimshot sound here.
Over the last seven years I’ve studied the post-Christmas toysplosion extensively and have some observations and maybe even some solutions to share. To start with, it’s all about maintaining the toy equilibrium. It’s not hard to see that the influx of so many toys at Christmas is going to cause an imbalance (if ever one existed) between toys and places to store them
It’s not a coincidence that Home Depot has their big organization and storage sale immediately after Christmas. However, you won’t restore the toy equilibrium by simply running out and buying 36 storage tubs on December 26. Let my experience be your guide.
Now, I suppose up north you might be able to get away with this for a while. If you’ve got basically another house underneath yours in the form of a basement you probably can horde for a number of years and maintain an apparent equilibrium on the living floor(s).
But the illusion behind the whole you just need more storage matra is that toys don’t stay stored if kids have access to them. Kids are the great toy equilibrium disruptors. They want the toysplosion. Kids are like the villain who wants to swim in his piles of gold -- except it’s just piles and piles of toys
There is no effective natural toy equilibrium maintenance process. Sure, there’s some toy loss via attrition (broken toys, lost toys, toys that are inexplicable thrown over the fence) but this sort of slow erosion of the toy supply can’t compete with the blitz of toys received during Christmas, birthdays, and President’s Day (these toys must be coming from somewhere unexpected).
There are also certain toys that have shockingly short longevity. In our house the ones that come to mind are kites, gliders, Play Dough, and small remote control cars. The first two rarely live outside their packaging for an hour, Play Dough’s lucky to make it a week, and small remote control cars will be used into oblivion in less than a month.
As my friend, (let’s call him Derek) observed, we need the toy equivalent of a forest fire to assist with maintaining the toy equilibrium. Most of the fires you hear about these days aren’t naturally occurring, but naturally occurring forest fires are a fantastic organic way to maintain a healthy forest. We don’t have this for toys.
You have to maintain your own equilibrium. One toy in, one toy out. Toss ‘em if their broken, pass them along to family or friends if you can, or donate them. Consider this invented but anecdotally supportable statistic about kids: 90% of play is done with 10% of their toys.
In the end we’ve done this to ourselves. By supporting cheap toys, letting our kids get sucked into the marketing of branded everything, and by thinking kids always need something new to keep them occupied.
So, while trying to start fresh by burning up the toys isn't an option, restoring the toy equilibrium is. But it’s not going to be easy.