Your guide to activities and fun things to do with your preschoolers, toddlers and kids in Cleveland, OH

Our household is full of toys.  Full of stuff and full of excess.

Over the summer and in recent months, we have struggled through what seemed like hopeless attempts to de-"stuff" our house.

Our children are privileged and over-toyed.  They have TOO MUCH!

We got rid of boxes of mismatched toys with missing pieces.  We donated the toys we'd outgrown and participated in a toy swap with friends to breath some new life into our "stuff."

My hopes had been that we would prepare ourselves for the upcoming gifting season ... which is what it's become.  A season of gifting - most of which is completely un-necessary!

I watched my kids through this process and instead of becoming sad at the realization that they had LESS stuff, instead they got excited about giving.

THEY ... these little itty bitties ... got excited about giving!

When your littles lead you, it's your job to follow that lead! 

This holiday season, we are requesting that they kids take stock in what they have ... choose what means the most to them ... and then gift a duplicate item to someone else!

If their favorite prized possession is a teddy bear, we'll make a trip to the store to pick out a teddy bear to gift.  If they have a favorite book, we'll gift that.

We're letting them choose from:

Toys for Tots

Project Night Night

or

local to the East Side of Cleveland : Santa's Hideaway Hollow

I'm very, VERY excited to watch them through this process.  I'm so hopeful that some of these small acts of giving back will impress on them the need to always think charitably.

We will be asking them to fully participate.  It is their responsibility to pick out the gifts, pay for them (with OUR money .... we'll work NEXT year on them ACTUALLY paying for their gifting) and delivering said gifts.

It's never to early to start teaching our young ones to share, right?