2016 Holiday Season

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every year I try and say this is going to be "the" Christmas, where everything is done early, we get to relax and enjoy it and here I am damn near December 10th and been going balls to the wall with kid BS, family, BS, work BS..........

 
every year I try and say this is going to be "the" Christmas, where everything is done early, we get to relax and enjoy it and here I am damn near December 10th and been going balls to the wall with kid BS, family, BS, work BS..........
This sounds all too familiar.   I just bought the first present.   Some beer for my brother. 

 
I just put in 1 Amazon order 2 days ago that literally took care of my entire list.  Sure it was almost $700, but I went from 0 to done in one fell swoop.  It all got delivered today.  Now I just have to wrap this shit.

 
I just put in 1 Amazon order 2 days ago that literally took care of my entire list.  Sure it was almost $700, but I went from 0 to done in one fell swoop.  It all got delivered today.  Now I just have to wrap this shit.
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The clutter in this house is driving me nucking futz. The holidays are extra stressful because my family believes it's not really Christmas unless you buy a hundred individually wrapped pieces of plastic crap to give to each person. I don't understand why we can't just give each other a few high quality gifts and call it good. So now I refuse to clean the playroom in the hopes it will motivate them to try to stop accumulating useless things, but no - the answer is always to buy something else to "fix" our storage issues. I welcome any suggestions for how to get rid of some of the clutter in grandiose fashion to get the message across that Mom is about to snap. Maybe set a pile of Barbies on fire in front of the kids' bedroom door?

 
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The clutter in this house is driving me nucking futz. The holidays are extra stressful because my family believes it's not really Christmas unless you buy a hundred individually wrapped pieces of plastic crap to give to each person. I don't understand why we can't just give each other a few high quality gifts and call it good. So now I refuse to clean the playroom in the hopes it will motivate them to try to stop accumulating useless things, but no - the answer is always to buy something else to "fix" our storage issues. I welcome any suggestions for how to get of some of the clutter in grandiose fashion to get the message across that Mom is about to snap. Maybe set a pile of Barbies on fire in front of the kids' bedroom door?
Step 1: Get a POD.

Step 2: Move everything you need to survive into the POD.

Step 3: Burn your house down with all unnecessary shit inside.

Repeat every couple of years to keep the clutter in check.

 
The clutter in this house is driving me nucking futz. The holidays are extra stressful because my family believes it's not really Christmas unless you buy a hundred individually wrapped pieces of plastic crap to give to each person. I don't understand why we can't just give each other a few high quality gifts and call it good. So now I refuse to clean the playroom in the hopes it will motivate them to try to stop accumulating useless things, but no - the answer is always to buy something else to "fix" our storage issues. I welcome any suggestions for how to get of some of the clutter in grandiose fashion to get the message across that Mom is about to snap. Maybe set a pile of Barbies on fire in front of the kids' bedroom door?
With 3 boys, this quickly became a problem.  We solved it by simply telling everyone, they DON'T NEED 14 PIECES OF PLASTIC CRAP every year.  Now the grandmas typically get them a couple of small things and pool their resources to get each a relatively nice gift.  Before we tried this, it got so bad that we just started returning stuff and buying clothes or something they actually needed.  

 
The clutter in this house is driving me nucking futz. The holidays are extra stressful because my family believes it's not really Christmas unless you buy a hundred individually wrapped pieces of plastic crap to give to each person. I don't understand why we can't just give each other a few high quality gifts and call it good. So now I refuse to clean the playroom in the hopes it will motivate them to try to stop accumulating useless things, but no - the answer is always to buy something else to "fix" our storage issues. I welcome any suggestions for how to get of some of the clutter in grandiose fashion to get the message across that Mom is about to snap. Maybe set a pile of Barbies on fire in front of the kids' bedroom door?
I used to have my kids help me get rid of stuff.  We'd put it into garbage bags and take it to the Goodwill, a toy drive, or someplace like that, with the understanding that it was for kids that don't have toys.  Anything remotely broken was simply thrown away.  Every "free" toy too (think happy meal).  If you make an announcement to family that you're rounding up multiple garbage bags full of toys to give to GoodWill, they will probably get the idea.

 
I make a trip to Goodwill every couple of months, throw away toys I told the kids I would toss if they didn't get picked up, and have asked people time and again not to buy the kids presents unless it's something practical like clothes or books. Nothing stems the tide of crap that comes in. Ergo, fire.

 
On 12/11/2016 at 0:16 AM, YMZ PE said:
The clutter in this house is driving me nucking futz. The holidays are extra stressful because my family believes it's not really Christmas unless you buy a hundred individually wrapped pieces of plastic crap to give to each person. I don't understand why we can't just give each other a few high quality gifts and call it good. So now I refuse to clean the playroom in the hopes it will motivate them to try to stop accumulating useless things, but no - the answer is always to buy something else to "fix" our storage issues. I welcome any suggestions for how to get rid of some of the clutter in grandiose fashion to get the message across that Mom is about to snap. Maybe set a pile of Barbies on fire in front of the kids' bedroom door?


 
Tell me about it.  We have two boys and plenty of storage for everything.  The problem is they never clean anything up.  We'll spend half an hour cleaning up the toys and by night, they are scattered all over the living room again.  We've started putting stuff in a trash bag to donate, but haven't gotten very far.  My coworker just picks up the toys off the floor every six months and throws them away in the dumpster behind our office building.

 
The clutter is bothering me so much, I'm trying to buy a bigger house...

 
I know, but the commute would be a bitch!
Well, moving to my place would be predicated on you no longer working in Hawaii.  I'd imagine 13 hours in the air each way would get old pretty fast...

 
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