Chris Kidd

The idea is simple: set aside a day this weekend or next, as the Christmas season pitches into full gear, to work with your children on cleaning their rooms. This isn’t a normal room-cleaning, though. Explain to them that while they are dreaming of new toys for Christmas, there are lots of kids whose families can’t afford to give their children new toys, and that those children would be happy to have some of your kids’ toys to play with.

Set out two boxes, one for trash and one for charity, and sort their old toys into them. As you pick up each toy in their room, ask them whether they think they will still play with it next year. Then ask whether another child might enjoy it more than they would. If they aren’t playing with it anymore, or if they can bear to part with it, it goes in one of the two boxes.

There are a number of benefits to this beyond just getting their rooms clean in time for the arrival of Santa’s deliveries. Making this kind of clean-sweep teaches:
Organization ... Charity ... Contemplation ... Counter-consumerism

With an afternoon’s work — and family togetherness, which is nothing to sneeze at! — you can teach some valuable lessons to your children and help out someone else’s children at the same time. And, if nothing else, you’ll have cleared up some space in their rooms for the new arrivals come Christmas.